Appeals to Supreme Court against “shameful” trial ruling
The group of lawyers representing the plaintiffs in the wiretapping case against former president Ricardo Martinelli will present an appeal to the Supreme Court against the verdict of not guilty handed down by judges he had appointed to different well-paid posts during his administration
The appeal will be filed before the Second Chamber of the Supreme Court. while the appeal for annulment will be brought before the High Court of Justice.
On August 9, in a unanimous ruling, a trial court found Martinelli not guilty of the accusations of alleged political and peculated espionage and lifted all the precautionary measures against him.
The court also ruled out the precautionary measure of house arrest, but maintained the impediment of leaving the country until the sentence was formally read, on August 26 at 4:00 pm Before he was behind bars for two years, : one year at the Miami Federal Detention Center and another at the El Renacer prison . Since June 11, he was under house arrest.
The judges considered that the prosecution could not prove “the theory of the case” and that various inconsistencies were observed.
The lawyer of the complainant Mauro Zuñiga, Carlos Herrera Morán, said Tuesday, August 13 at a press conference at the National Bar Association that the not-guilty ruling fills the Panamanian nation with shame.
According to Herrera Morán, it was an unfair and divorced sentence of the Constitution and the law. “That it is based on an unconfessable situation on the part of the three judges.”
Herrera Morán recalled that in the intermediate stage of the process following Martinelli, the statement of the protected witness was declared legal.
He added that that is why the protected witness is admitted to the oral trial stage. “And these judges appointed by hand come out … to say that the testimony of the protected witness was of illegal descent.”
Judges Roberto Tejeira, Arlene Caballero and Raúl Vergara constituted the court of the wiretaps oral trial.
