Fugitive sons of Ricardo Martinelli denied bail bolthole

The two fugitive sons of former Panama president Ricardo Martinelli have lost their latest bid to stall their call to justice.

Twelfth Criminal Court has denied a bail request not to be detained filed by the defense of the brothers Luis Enrique and Ricardo Alberto Martinelli Linares, under investigation for the alleged laundering of multi-millions of dollars of bribes paid by the Odebrecht company to obtain contracts for the construction of public infrastructure.

In a January 10, ruling, Judge Oscar Carrasquilla denied the benefit to both id because they “have not made their discharges”, which “can be considered a refusal to help clarify the facts.”

The judge also argues that the procedural situation of both is that they are of “unknown whereabouts”, since there is only information “that they are outside the national territory, that  and can be considered an evasion.”

Judge Carrasquilla arrives at this conclusion taking into account the aspects that link them to the investigation, “the supposed fact that companies under their ownership may have received money transfers from a company linked to the Structured Operations Department of Odebrecht”.

In addition, the judge indicated that the investigation of this case could not be considered as completed since it was awaiting the resolution of constitutional guarantee protection presented by the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor.

The Amparo referred to by the judge was resolved on January 6 by the First Superior Court which granted the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office up to 5 months and 8 more days to investigate.

The Public Prosecutor initiated the investigation on December 22, 2016, after the Swiss Federal Prosecutor’s Office fingered the Martinelli Linares brothers for allegedly receiving sums of money from Odebrecht through the companies Kadair Investment Ltd, Fordel International Ltd, and Aragon Finance Corp BVI.

 The Office of the Public Prosecutor, when conducting an inspection of an account of Constructora Internacional del Sur, discovered that the Department of Structured Operations of Odebretcht had made a transfer of $3 million to Kadair Investment.