Panama corruption suspects roam giant open jail

PANAMA  has  the world’s biggest minimum security prison covering over 75,000 square kilometers  housing scores of  former high rollers accused  of pocketing hundreds of millions of dollars from public coffers or from direct bribes from companies like Odebrecht or  just straight forward theft .

They are beneficiaries of a cute judicial practice that enables those with enough funds to hire the right silver tongued lawyers to talk the judge into giving them “country arrest” instead of preventive detention, which means that they can continue their high living and socializing practices while awaiting trial.

Lesser breeds can wait for months or years in hell holes like La Joya.

Country and/or house arrest is often flouted with one female high profile detainee seen attending a “medical” appointment”  in a Bogota night club, and one house arrest character was seen off on a plane to  Miami by a public prosecutor, whom Ricardo Martinelli, later appointed to the Supreme Court.  The prosecutor’s  former boss who tried to bring him to heel was railroaded from her job.

So if you’re looking for a plot for a fantasy crime novel look no further than the local halls of justice.

Meanwhile La Estrella points out that the Isthmus is the “prison”  of almost all the cabinet of the ex- president After some three years of judicial investigation of hundreds of corruption crimes imputed to them. Only the ex-capo is missing from the club.

The sole survivor  of  the change of government is Roberto Roy, the Minister of Panama Canal Affairs and director  of the Panama Metro in the Martinelli administration and under President Juan Carlos Varela,

Varela, then Vice-president   broke  with Martinelli in 2011  and has said several times that he left the administration disgusted by the  “corruption” but maintains, publicly and privately, that he is not persecuting  his former colleagues,

Of 16 senior figureheads, including ministers and deputy ministers, today onlyex-Finance, Frank De Lima is in a cell where he arrived last week facing charges over a concession at  Tocumen International, a case that had dropped off the public radar.

De Lima had previously been imprisoned for months for another case in which he was linked by his ex-deputy Gladys Cedeño, who has been detained for a year.

Not named  in any investigation are, Fernando Núñez Fábrega, distant cousin of Martinelli, and Francisco Alvarez De Soto, as well as former Minister of Commerce and Industries Ricardo Quijano.

The former housing boss Yasmina Pimentel is under investigation over a social housing program, but has no injunction measures against her.

Roberto Henríquez – brother of the current ambassador to  Spain, Milton Henríquez – has country jail, along with the ex-president of the Presidency Maria Fábrega.

Others on the wall of shame are ex Minister of Social Development Guillermo Ferrufino and his ex-deputy minister Marta González-Ruiz de Varela, aunt of the current president; Juan Carlos Varela; Oscar Osorio of the Agrarian Development Department, Emilio Kieswetter, of Public Works his colleagues Federico Suárez and Jaime Ford.

Others   still free to wine and dine in Panama’s   finest eateries are the ex-Minister of the Small and Medium Enterprise Authority (Ampyme) Giselle Burillo, the former Minister of Public Security José Raúl Mulino, ex health ministers Javier Díaz and Franklin Vergara and his ex-secretary Serafín Sánchez, Former Education  Minister Lucy Molinar and the former Minister of Labor Alma Cortés. Some have spent short periods in detention but have found the hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay the legal fees to get the key to the county prison.

The former Tourism Authority manager Salomon   Shamah, has failed to appear in court to face charges and has fled the coop and was last seen partying in Bogota.

Luis Eduardo Camacho, son of Martinelli’s spin doctor and apologist and former foreign trade minister, is in country jail.

Adolfo “Chichi” De Obarrio, Martinelli’s private secretary, whose mother, Silvina Manzini, was sent to the women’s prison on August 9  is facing unjustified enrichment charges He fled Panama with his wife in 2014.

Others who have not appeared before local  courts are Martinelli’s two sons, linked to the Odebrecht   investigation and against whom there is an Interpol  “red alert.”

The list of corrupted ex-officials is broader, and dozens of entrepreneurs and  banks whose names are jealously guarded are facing investigation.