Panama sending corruption impunity message worldwide

The absence of punishment in high profile corruption cases in Panama sends a message of impunity, to the world says the former president of Transparency International José Ugaz.  

On the verdict that declared former President Ricardo Martinelli not guilty  in the wiretapping trial he said that “it is a case that has passed through the sieve of American justice and that comes with an accumulation of evidence, through a series of subterfuges and arguments that have been rehearsed for a long time  it ends in impunity. I think it is something that must be solved because when these cases of great corruption occur and go unpunished, the tendency is to repeat. ”  

The lawyer participated on Thursday, August 15, on the second day of the XXXIII Hemispheric Congress on Prevention of Money Laundering.

In addition to the case of Martinelli, he mentioned the scandals of Odebrecht and Mossack Fonseca, which have had greater criminal and political consequences outside, than within Panama.  

The lawyer described the message sent by justice to citizens as much as to the world as “bad” when, for formal terms or for legal contraptions, “it is not evident what is evident.”  

Ugaz also said  that Panama and has been put back on the gray list of the Financial Action Task Force, which identifies countries with deficiencies in the fight against money laundering.