Pandemic delays Martinelli sons' extradition hearings

Everything was ready for the fugitive sons of former president Ricardo Martinelli. Even a private plane was waiting to take them to Panama from La Aurora airport in Guatemala. Just at the crucial moment, the Guatemalan authorities at the request of the United States arrested, them.

A New York court wants both to answer for bribes paid over several years by the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht, through the US financial system reports La Prensa.

According to two affidavits presented to federal judge Robert M. Levy of the Eastern District of New York, the Martinelli Linares brothers are being investigated for their alleged participation in a complex scheme considered in the United States as money laundering and conspiracy to launder, by a amount of $ 28 million, “under the direction of Odebrecht.”

Although the indictment is sealed by order of the judge, the assistant prosecutor Julia Nestor explained in an affidavit that the accusations against Luis Enrique were: one charge of conspiracy to carry out money laundering; two charges of concealing the proceeds of money laundering, resulting from a bribe to “a senior official of the Panamanian government,” and another two charges for using funds from money laundering, derived from a bribe to the same official.

While Ricardo Alberto faces: one charge for conspiracy to launder money and two charges for concealing the proceeds of money laundering derived from a bribe to a senior official of the Panamanian government.

Although the name of that “very high” official is not released, it is specified that he is a “close relative” of the two defendants and that the events investigated occurred between 2009 and 2014, a period that corresponds to the mandate of Ricardo Martinelli. The former president has said that his children came to Panama (after years safely in Florida and California) supposedly “to cooperate with justice” and that the whole process is an “invention.”

A conviction for these crimes would imply up to 50 years in prison for Luis Enrique and up to 40 years for Ricardo Alberto, as stated in her sworn statement by the prosecutor Nestor.

The arrest

 The Martinelli Linares brothers were arrested on July 6, and their cases sent to different courts, Ricardo Alberto’s case was referred to the Third Court of Criminal Sentencing, Drug Trafficking and Crimes against the Environment, and that of Luis Enrique, to the Fifth Court.

The Guatemalan justice system, like the Panamanian one, is hit by the Covid-19 pandemic. In Guatemala, for example, from March 13 to July 23 of this year, 79,709 hearings were suspended in the different jurisdictions, 67% correspond to the penal area. On July 10, Ricardo Alberto was taken to a hearing before the Third Court, which ended when defense attorney Denis Cuesy filed an Amparo against the members of the Court, who did not recognize the “diplomatic immunity” of his client as a deputy. substitute for the Central American Parliament (Parlacen). The First Chamber of the Court of Appeals of the Criminal Branch of Guatemala rejected attorney Cuesy’s appeal on October 21, but he appealed to the Constitutional Court of Guatemala.

On July, 24 it was announced that the Fifth Court had started the extradition process to the United States of Enrique However, this process has been delayed both by the judicial resources presented by the defense and by the limitations of justice in the time of Covid-19.

Cuesy wants his clients to be recognized as Parlacen deputies, despite the fact that they have not been sworn in and have never held office.

When media versions suggested that Parlacen might be considering swearing in the two Panamanians in a special session at the Mariscal Zavala Michael Kozak, Acting Undersecretary of State for Human Affairs Western Hemisphere the United States, wrote on July 28, on his Twitter account: “Individuals within Parlacen would like to use membership as a shield to block the extradition to the United States of accused criminals. Doing so would damage the rule of law and promote impunity in the region ”. The message was immediately retweeted by the US embassies in Panama and Guatemala. Later, on August 6, in statements to Radio PanamaKozak stated that “any multilateral organization should avoid using the immunity provided to its members to give retroactive immunity to someone who has been accused.”

On December 22, Stewart Tuttle, charge d’affaires of the embassy in Panama, said in an interview on Radio Panama that “… we have an extradition treaty with Guatemala and we have the expectation that it will be fulfilled in this case, and it is important reiterate that we take very seriously when people take advantage of our financial system to launder money ”.

Next chapter

Once the challenges and judicial resources on the issue of the presumed diplomatic immunity of Ricardo Alberto and Luis Enrique are cleared, then the cases would be referred back to the criminal sentencing courts where they began, so that the substantive discussion on the extradition to the United States. It would be useless to speculate on terms, since the scourges of the pandemic and the initiatives of judicial defense will dictate the speed with which this process will be defined, and that apparently, the United States government has a great interest in airing before its own Courts the fate of the children of a former Panamanian president and others, still undisclosed, who participated in one of the many dead ends of Odebrecht corruption. It is usual for the justice of Guatemala to accept the extradition permits requested by the United