Court upholds detention order for laundering suspect

A preventive detention order  against Ori Zbeda the legal representative of Financial Pacific (FP), has been  ratified and declared legal by Panama’s  Supreme Court (CSJ) Zbeda has an arrest warrant issued by the Seventh Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office for money laundering of capital and financial crimes in the handling of $4.4 million in the Jal Offshore FP account.

In the September 11 ruling, the full court rejected a habeas corpus filed by the lawyer of Zbeda, to annul the detention ordered on May 9.

Zbeda is a fugitive who decided to leave the country when he heard of the case against him.

The judges warned that Zbeda is linked to a company that handles “large amounts of money”, to facilitate his evasion.

The Court also denied a habeas corpus to Margie Ángel de Cohen, another of those involved in the Jal Offshore case who has already surrendered and is under country arrest.

The Jal Offshore case remains under investigation by the prosecution and over 20 people are  imputed