AG and criminal prosecutors analyze Martinelli cases

Panama’s Attorney General, Eduardo Ulloa, has called in the country’s senior criminal prosecutors, to review and “analyze” the situation of nearly a dozen cases linked to former president Ricardo Martinelli and the application of the principle of specialty contemplated in the Panama-States extradition treaty United of 1904.

In December  the US State Department sent a note to the Public Prosecutor’s Office, on December 12, 2019, in which it states that Martinelli is no longer subject to the principle of specialty in extradition matters.

That means that Martinelli could be investigated, prosecuted and tried in Panama in those cases that are not linked to the wire case for which he was extradited by the United States in June 2018.

On Friday, January 10, in a press release from the Office of Attorney General on the meeting of prosecutors with Ulloa, said that “a review and analysis of the content of various documents was made, including the letter sent by the Sub-Adviser Intelligence and Law Enforcement Law of the US Department of State on December 12, 2019 to the ex-Attorney General, – Kenia Porcell -, in the context of an informal communication, in relation to the situation of the extradited person ”.

In the meeting, reference was also made to the “exchange of notes that was held on April 4, 2019 between the Panamanian Foreign Ministry and the United States Department of State, which is related to the validity and application of the aforementioned principle, and the law 75 of June 14, 1904, which approves an Extradition Convention between the United States of America and Panama. ”

Thomas Heinemann, the State Department official who signed the note received at the Public Prosecutor’s Office last December 12, said that the specialty principle contemplated in the extradition treaty would not apply from now on, given that Martinelli has been allowed to travel outside of Panama since September 15.

Regarding the exchange of letters of April 2019, Heinemann and the then director of legal affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Gina López Candanedo, agreed that the mechanism by which both countries expressed their consent for exceptions to the specialty principle would be via from the Public Ministry of Panama to the United States Department of State, and vice versa.

In the meeting with Ulloa, were anti-corruption prosecutors against Organized Crime and International participated, Affairs, among others.

In the meantime, Martinelli’s team of lawyers reacted to the US note by calling a press conference to denounce Kenia Porcell and launch a $10 million lawsuit against her