Jailed ex-minister side steps interrogation

Panama’s Former Minister of Public Works already slapped with two preventive detention orders has once again decided not to risk digging the hole any deeper and exercised his constitutional right to not make a declaration that could incriminate him.

Federico Pepe Suarez is now facing an inquiry in the process related to alleged cost overruns in the preservation project of the historical heritage of the old city of Panama developed by the Odebrecht company.

ON Wednesday, October 24, Suarez was taken to the anti-corruption prosecutor’s office, but he accepted article 25 of the Constitution which states that “no one is obliged to declare in a criminal, correctional or police matter, against himself, his spouse or his relatives within the fourth degree of consanguinity or second degree of affinity.”

The former minister has been in a cell in the Directorate of Judicial Investigation (DIJ)  since Friday, October 12, because of the Blue Apple case, regarding the alleged payment of bribes to government officials by private contractors. In this case, Suarez also accepted article 25 reports La  Prensa