Martinelli sons rights appeal setback

A SUPREME COURT  draft decision that said the two sons of ex-president Ricardo Martinelli had their constitutional rights violated  when  the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office asked banks for information about their bank accounts, has gone back to the drawing board,

Ricardo Alberto and Luis Enrique Martinelli Linares are under investigation for receiving bribes from Odebrecht.

Judicial Branch sources told La Prensa that  Judge Efran Tello, acting as substitute for Ángela Russo, stated in the draft  ruling that the Martinelli brothers  had their l rights violated because According to Tello, the prosecutor’s request “was not specific.”

However, magistrates Harry Díaz, Abel Zamorano and Oydén Ortega disagreed.  In principle, magistrate Luis Ramón Fábrega endorsed Tello’s arguments, but in the end, voted against.

The appeal is now in the hands of Díaz, who must present a new draft.

The prosecutor’s office is investigating the brothers for  money laundering because they allegedly received bribes from Odebrecht through banks in Switzerland.

The prosecutor justified that the information requested from the banks was “to verify the possible

commission of criminal offenses against the economic order, specifically the crime of money laundering of capital, so it is appropriate to perform the diligence that allows demonstrating or not showing the national banking system  has been used to launder capital proceeds of crime and” and   argued that one of the “most important ways for the verification of this criminal type

are the bank records in which  the defendants could keep, resources that help

confirm the facts that are investigated or simply discard them “.

Tello accepted the reasoning of lawyer Luis Eduardo Camacho Jr., who argued that the information requested by the prosecutor Tania Sterling was a fishing expedition since it was addressed to all accounts and banking movements of the Martinelli Linares.