Family reunion as Panama moves on Martinelli sons
With ex-president Ricardo Martinelli behind bars in El Renacer prison awaiting Panama’s tortuous judicial process to creep into action the Foreign Ministry has already initiated the first steps in bringing his two sons back to Panama for a family reunion and to face money laundering charges with over $22 million frozen in European Banks and a luxury apartment seized in Madrid and a helicopter seized in the US and held in Panama.
The extradition process for Ricardo and Luis Martinelli Linares means “they will have to suffer the same fate and we will see what their lawyers have to say” said Foreign Ministry vice-chancellor Luis Miguel Hincapié.
It will depend on how many stalling resources they present. “We notify the embassy, they send the papers to the State Department which is the Foreign Ministry of the United States, and from there they send it to the Department of Justice, “said Hincapie.
Political Persecution
Panama’s former first lady Marta Linares de Martinelli said Monday, June 11
that the rights of her children have been “violated” and that, as in the case of her husband, they are victims of “political persecution” by the Government of the current president of Panama, Juan Carlos Varela.
In January 2017, the Panamanian Prosecutor’s Office laid money laundering charges against the Martinelli brothers and one month later asked Interpol for an international search and capture.
The Panamanian Justice validated last December the agreement reached between the Prosecutor’s Office and Odebrecht, which includes the payment of a fine of $220 million and the filing of the case in Panama against the company and its former directors in the country for having collaborated in the investigations.
During the hearing to validate the agreement, the Public Prosecutor’s Office revealed that André Rabello, who headed the Odebrecht operations in Panama for several years
confessed to having paid more than $80 million to officials and Panamanian individuals, of which $55.8 million went to the Martinelli brothers.
They are also named in an investigation of a TV gambling scam.
