New Business hearing a litmus test for Panamanian justice

 

The preliminary hearing for the ‘New Business’ case, in which former President Ricardo Martinelli, is accused of money laundering will be a litmus test for the Panamanian judicial system legal observers told La Estrella.

The hearing,  restarted  Tuesday at 9:00 am, in the Superior Court of Liquidation of Criminal Cases in charge of Judge Baloísa Marquínez

The lawyer Carlos Herrera Morán said that as a jurist and as a Panamanian citizen he welcomes the fact Martinelli is finally going to sit in the dock, who has used all kinds of subterfuges and trivial excuses. to evade justice. “None of this has worked for him and he will have to render an account before the Panamanian courts,”

He said that this is a serious case in which resources from acts of corruption were used to buy media, so he believes that the crime committed cannot go unpunished. “This is a historic trial, it is a test for justice.” Political analyst José Eugenio Stoute argued that there is little that can be said about the alternative hearing that the former president will have to face trial for the very serious charges that the prosecution formulated against him,”

Anette Planells, from the Independent Movement (Movin) said that they hope that the hearing will take place, since it, she specified, “should have been done in January but the magistrates of the Electoral Tribunal, in complicity with Martinelli, maintained a criminal jurisdiction that was declared unconstitutional.” She added that Judge Baloísa Marquínez now has the opportunity to put Martinelli on trial and answer before the courts before seeking immunity by aspiring t