Rampaging Panama lawmaker could face jail time

 Deputy Bolota Salazar of the ruling PRD party who is building a portfolio of cases involving challenges to police officers is facing charges in the Supreme Court that could put him behind bars.

The latest incident came when driving with  no visible license plate, refused to show his driver’s license, and when the agent tried to speak to him, he brought up his deputy status.

The incident went  viral with  the March 15  broadcast of a video in which Salazar is heard to yell aggressively at the agent: “Take off your uniform. I fight like crazy .. I am a boxer, film me ”.

Following the latest incident Police Director Jorge Miranda, criminally denounced him before the Supreme (CSJ) for the alleged commission of crime against the public administration.

But it was not the first incident reports La Prensa. On November 13, 2019, the Legal Department of the National Police filed a complaint with the Supreme Court against Deputy Salazar for disrespect for authority and hindering police work.

This, followed  incident in the Los Lagos sector, in Colón, when the police were called to a party due to complaints from neighbors. On that occasion, Salazar went to a police station after one of the partiers and was arrested threatened to break the heads of the officers.

The most recent complaint was distributed on March 18 by the Secretariat of the Court and was filed in the office of Judge Luis Ramón Fábrega, President of the Court.

After the incidents, PRD general secretary, Pedro Miguel González, warned that “nobody is above the law.”  But to date, the PRD has not announced whether an internal disciplinary process has been opened.

Article 360 ​​of the Penal Code says that “ whoever with violence, intimidation or deception prevents, hinders or imposes on a public servant or the person who assists him, the execution or omission of an act proper to the legitimate exercise of his functions will be sanctioned with two to five years in prison. ”