The Public Prosecutor’s Office is Protecting Annette Planells and her Group; the Prosecutor will be Sued says Zulay
Former congresswoman Zulay Rodríguez Lu stated that she will take legal action against prosecutor Federico Andrés Ayú Prado Canals for ordering the dismissal of a complaint she filed in June 2023 against Annette Planells, Mauricio Valenzuela and other members of the digital media outlet Foco for crimes against the inviolability of secrecy and the right to privacy, against life and personal integrity, in the form of psychological injuries. In his resolution to close the case, dated December 19, 2025, the representative of the Public Ministry based his decision on the fact that with the alleged disclosure of the audios on June 19, 2023, in which a series of conversations between Rodríguez Lu and her husband can be heard, “there was no improper disclosure of the content of an electronic document consisting of a recording.”
According to Rodríguez Lu, the prosecutor’s argument is absurd, and he asserted that the prosecutor is protecting Planells and Foco. Therefore, he will request a hearing to petition for the case file to be reopened so that it can be reviewed by another prosecutor. Additionally, he will file an administrative complaint and a criminal lawsuit against the official in the Public Prosecutor’s Office’s Crimes Against Liberty and Honor Section. “Ayú Prado is saying that the audios that Foco released, which were unpublished, had already been replicated, but, even the Penal Code establishes that you cannot replicate an audio (of private conversations), it is illegal,” Rodríguez Lu told news reporters. She indicated that the prosecutor has refused to investigate or pursue her case, “because if that happens, Nito will fall, Gaby will fall, and the people from Foco will fall.”
Above is Annette Planells, the head of the Planells group, and the center of the controversy in La Prensa
She asserted that the National Security Council, during “Nito” Cortizo’s presidency, provided the Planells group with the audio recordings of her private conversations with her husband. “Only the National Security Council could have given them that information,” she stated. The former congresswoman emphasized that she even requested that prosecutor Ayú Prado take a statement from Ismael Pittí, who was a member of the National Security Council, but he refused. Because of this, she had to request a hearing regarding the violation of her rights, in which a judge ordered the prosecutor to interview Pittí. “And now he’s shelved the case to avoid taking Ismael Pittí’s statement.” “How did Foco have that? How did Foco have three unpublished audio recordings that had never been released?” questioned the former presidential candidate.
Zulay Rodríguez, pictured above, pointed out that Pittí was the one who tapped her conversations and then provided them to the group led by Planells, the former president of the newspaper La Prensa who was recently described as an “extortionist” by the United States ambassador to Panama, Kevin Marino Cabrera. “The wiretapper! The one who recorded me! Appointed and protected by Nito Cortizo, below right and Juan Carlos Varela, below left.
The judge ordered him to take the statement, but the prosecutor refused,” he reiterated. At the time, the complaint filed had been admitted by resolution of July 9, 2023. Rodríguez Lu argued in the complaint that the members of Foco used the audios and her image to try to link her to the possible murder of a subject accused of drug trafficking, while at the same time exposing something “as intimate” as the relationship between her and her husband.
United States ambassador to Panama, Kevin Marino Cabrera
