Blue Apple focus now on Martinelli's sons

After 63 hours of hearings in the Blue Apple case; Judge Baloisa Marquínez must resolve three appeals and rule while the case now takes another direction: the plenary session of the Supreme Court of Justice must initiate the process to prosecute Ricardo and Luis Enrique Martinelli Linares, sons of former president Ricardo Martinelli), who were strategically sworn in as substitute deputies of the Central American Parliament, with the aim of diluting the process.

The plenary of the Supreme Court must assign a substantiating magistrate, a person who must draft a project on whether or not to admit the rupture.

If the procedural rupture dictated by Marquínez is admitted, the full Court must appoint a prosecutor and the rest of the magistrates would act as judges.

The same file and the same evidence that was already admitted by Marquinez for the trial that concluded last Monday will be used in the trial.

The connection of the Martinelli brothers in the Blue Apple case arises from the confession made to the Public Ministry by Jorge Churro Ruiz, who served as head of contracts for the Ministry of Public Works (MOP).

Ruiztold the prosecution that Ricardo Martinelli Linares contacted him at the end of 2010, to give him an instruction: he had to collect a percentage of the total amount of the contracts awarded to Bagatrac, SA, Constructora Rodsa, Constructora Meco, Conalvías, SA, GS Contractors–Grupo Corporativo GS and Concepto y Espacios.

Joaquín Rodríguez Salcedo, another of those accused in the investigation, also gave them away. He told the prosecution that payments were made to Corporación de Energía del Istmo, a hydroelectric company in which the sons of former President Martinelli had a stake and that those payments corresponded to commissions for contracts awarded by the MOP.

ANOTHER TRIAL
The Court also has a pending trial of another Parlacen substitute deputy: Kristelle Getzler Herrera de De Lima, wife of Frank De Lima, former Minister of Economy and Finance.

On March 9,  the plenary session of the Court decided to call Getzler to trial for alleged money laundering.

In this case, Judge María Eugenia López acts as prosecutor, but no date has yet been set for the trial.

Getzler is accused of having obtained funds from Blue Apple that were later deposited in the company Inversiones y Servicios LJ with which they would have acquired a car from Bavarian Motors, SA.

The trial of Génesis Geraldine De Gracia, who is a fugitive from justice, is also pending.

She is named in the case because she served as a legal representative of the companies Corporación Libuma and Nightmare Overseas moved funds allegedly linked to Blue Apple.

De Gracia, according to the investigation, was the secretary of Federico Barrios (creator of Blue Apple). Barrios said that she was the person who provided the nominal dignitaries for the incorporation of corporations that were used in the corporate structures created around Blue Apple.

So far, the only person convicted in this case is Adolfo Chichi De Obarrio, who was Ricardo Martinelli’s private secretary. De Obarrio was sentenced to 120 months in prison for money laundering.