MEDIAWATCH: Rope shortens for Martinelli

Fleeing the country, joining Parlacen, a body he had famously labeled a “den of thieves” skulking in Miami while he called investigations of disappearing millions of dollars “political persecution”, and playing a series of health cards has not helped former  Panama president  Ricardo Martinelli or his team of highly paid lawyers.

Some members of his former inner circle, facing numerous charges of pilfering the national treasury are similarly fighting to avoid their day in court, while some, like their leader, have fled the country. They must now be considering that the wheel has begun to turn and that impunity is no longer the rule, even for those at the top of the dung heap.

La Prensa, – which has played a major role in unveiling many of the crimes perpetrated by Panama’s elected “leaders,”- in its July 5 edition, sums up the ruling of the previous day, that may send some more malefactors scurrying for the exit doors.

La Prensa writes:

The baritone voice of magistrate Jerónimo Mejía flooded the courtroom while one by one fell the incidents of nullity of the technical defense. Here there was not a Felipe Baloy who scored a goal of honor.

The ant work of the prosecuting magistrate, Harry Diaz, and the recognized plaintiffs, made a dent in the defense’s containment wall.

The session began with the determination of who would be the intervening parties in the process. Mejía had to pronounce the difficult decision, at the request of the interested parties, that the group of plaintiffs represented by the lawyer Ángel Álvarez would not intervene in the process, due to the extemporaneous nature of its incorporation into the case. This does not mean that they stop being victims since they continue to maintain their rights to claim compensation for the alleged violations of their privacy. The implication is only procedural: they cannot question or argue within the process.

The highlight of the audience was offered by Mejía when responding to each of the nullities requested. Some were merely formulations invoked, as part of a judicial ritual.

But three of the requested nullities are extremely serious: the lack of imputation, the double trial and the limitation of prosecuting a President of the Republic for crimes mentioned in the Constitution.

In the most important of these nullities – the controversy over ‘absence of imputation’ – the magistrate Díaz made an important contribution to the analysis of Mejía, with the CNN interview in which Martinelli claimed he would not return to Panama and that he had a team of lawyers representing him in all his legal cases.

Mejía explained in detail why the system of special trials of the Criminal Procedure Code does not require imputation to the deputies since the legal situation of impunity could be given if the investigation was not done because a deputy evading justice could be absent from the imputation hearing. Mejía’s elaborate argument included mentions of Colombian jurisprudence and the doctrine of international specialists, supporting the criterion of the decision. Mejía was not speaking only for this hearing, but for the Court of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, shielding the decision against any possible appeal before that international tribunal.

Now the first background exercise of this case begins the list of tests of all parts. After which, Mejía must make a decision: grant a dismissal or raise the case to trial before the plenary of the Supreme Court of Justice.

Martinelli, 66 , who could face up to 21 years imprisonment will not be sleeping well.