Attorney General resigns as Vareleaks scandal widens

ama’s Attorney General  , Kenia Porcell , announced Tuesday, November 12 that she has resigned  from January 1, 2020, and that she communicated her decision, to President Laurentino Cortizo , at a meeting at the PresidentialPalace

Porcell said she  would formally submit the written resignation to Cortizo, on  Wednesday.

The Cabinet Council will now be responsible for appointing a replacement  completes the 10-year period for which Porcell had originally been designated, and which expires on December 31, 2024. Porcell said she aspires to conduct an orderly transition in his office.

“The country is above the AG  and I have to think about Panama. My presence affects impartiality,” Porcell said Tuesday, in an interview with Edwin Cabrera, news director of Radio Panama.

The journalist was surprised, since Cabrera had several minutes interviewing Porcell, without her making any reference to resigning from office. Reports La Prensa.

Cortizo received Porcell and David Díaz, deputy secretary general of the Attorney General’s Office on  There Porcell informed him of her intention to resign and establish a smooth transition with her successor.

“We reiterate the commitment of the National Government to strengthen institutionality and the rule of law,” said the Presidency.

Porcell’s resignation is a consequence of the Varelaleaks : the anonymous site that leaked the private communications of former President Juan Carlos Varela between 2017 and 2018. Among the messages disclosed are the conversations, via WhatsApp, between Varela and Porcell . The deal was frequent and close. In the 429 pages of messages, both refer to some files of corruption and money laundering, and, specifically, of the Odebrecht company and the collaboration agreement that it agreed with the Public Ministry.

Porcell said that she didn’t know the contents of the Varelaleaks.

“I have not seen it, I have not read it and I am not going to do it, because that is a crime,” Porcell told Radio Panama .

However, she said her communications could have been altered, as Varela accused last week. “Some things that my team has told me that they leave are not my expressions,” she said.

She  also said she received calls from  prosecutors from other countries, interested in assisting in the investigation “to determine the origin of this information.”

Currently, there is no ongoing investigationof the Varelaleaks. Although the former president has said that his cell phone was never lost and that his communications were extracted without his consent, article 112 of the Criminal Procedure Code indicates that the investigation of crimes against the inviolability of secrecy requires the submission of a complaint from the party. offended

Among the leaked communications there are several messages from Varela and Porcell, in which they refer to the agreement with Odebrecht, and how this was addressed by the then deputy  José Luis Popi Varela  and the former mayor of the construction company in Panama,  André Rabello . In May 2017, Rabello was pushing to reach an agreement. The communications between Popi Varela, his brother, the then president of the Republic, and Rabello, would reveal manipulation and pressures so that the latter was favored, while seeking to reduce the impact of the fine imposed by the Public Ministry (MP) on Odebrecht .