Varela calls on WhatsApp leak victims to defend rights

Former Panama president, Juan Carlos Varela, has  called on those who have been affected by the alleged leak of their WhatsApp chats through a digital site to “defend our rights.”

In  a statement,  issued Wednesday, November 13 Varela asked “not to let those who stole our people’s money to deprive us also of our dignity.”

Varela said that the “illegal” interception, alteration and filtration of his private conversations represent the “lowest act of cowardice of my political adversaries. [ He holds Ricardo Martinelli responsible for the leaks].

“The main objective of these leaks is undoubtedly to erode the credibility of our democratic institutions and divert attention from  cases of corruption and the fight against organized crime in the country,” he says.

He adds that this objective has resulted in the resignation of Kenia  Porcell from the position of attorney general of the Nation. Porcell announced Tuesday that she will leave the Attorney General’s Office five years before the expiration of the period for which she was appointed. The announcement came in the midst of the storm that generated  by the “Varelaleaks” scandal.

“Corruption at the highest levels of the government of. Ricardo Martinelli cost the Panamanian people more than a billion dollars,” says another part of the statement.

Former President Varela (2014-2019) also noted that for “purely destabilizing” purposes they have filtered his private conversations with family, friends and “with many other people who came to me as president of the country…. “Only they and I will know the real context in which these exchanges took place,” he says. 

Finally, Varela apologized to his family, to all those affected by the leaks and to the country, for this situation caused by “those who insist on challenging justice.”

The Varelaleaks site disclosed the alleged communications of Varela, in 2017 and 2018, with Porcell; Comptroller Federico Humbert, and former director of the National Security Council, Rolando López. Also with businessmen – like Pedro Heilbron, Stanley Motta, Taher Yaffar and Guillermo Liberman, among others -; Panamanian lobbyist Jaime Lasso; the vice president of Venezuela, Delcy Rodríguez, and the former  first lady Lorena Castillo de Varela, among many others.