Special anti-corruption prosecutors team assigned to Odebrecht probe

A SPECIAL Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office has been set up to investigate exclusively the bribes paid to Panama officials by the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht.

The prosecutors in charge will be Tania Sterling, Vielka Broce, Ruth Morcillo and Zuleika Moore.

The team will also include prosecutors Ricardo Muñoz and Thalia Palacios and four more, whose names have not yet  been specified.

In addition,  a Portuguese translator  will be assigned to the team.

Prosecutors Adelcio Mojica, Javier Miter, Lizzie Bonilla and Heydi Cedeño will take over the cases of the prosecutors who have been investigating corruption cases involving scores of millions of dollars  linked to the Ricardo Martinelli administration, tied to over 40 former officials and businessmen.

Members of the CD Party and their leader, Martinelli, have labeled the investigations as “political persecution.”

Currently, there are delegations from the Attorney General’s Office in the United States and Ecuador seeking information on the bribes paid by Odebrecht.

The new Ode brecht-probe team’s first act wa to raid the company’s Panama office on Wednesday Dec.28

The creation of a special unit to investigate the Odebrecht case was suggested by the Citizen’s Alliance for Justice which staged  a demonstration in front of the Attoney General’s office while the raid was underway.