“Depressed” hunger-striking Martinelli loses latest gambit

Former Panama president Ricardo Martinelli was finally taken to Panama’s the Supreme Court late Monday afternoon  June 25  for an indictment hearing that had been set for 9 a.m.

His earlier no- show had led to the hearing being adjourned as he, his wife, and a team of lawyers indevoured to prevent his appearance with legal strategies, health concerns, and a hunger strike which started on Sunday and a renewed refusal to take medication to control his blood pressure.

Published reports earlier in the day said that Martinelli refused to dress or leave his cell in El Renacer  Prison where he is serving provisional detention by order of the plenary of the Supreme Court after being extradited from the United States.

Meanwhile his lawyers were holding forth on TV, claiming that as he had resigned as a deputy of the Central American  Parliament,  that he once dubbed a “den of thieves’ he could not appear at the indictment hearing requested by the  prosecuting magistrate Harry Díaz, for  the alleged commission of crimes against the inviolability of secrecy and the right to privacy, and embezzlement. Diaz is asking for a 21-year jail term.

Martinelli arrived handcuffed and escorted by security agents. He looked less animated than on the other two occasions on which he appeared, and he was no longer playing to the small gathering of supporters. His wife Marta Linares said that he was “taken by force”.

His lawyer Cristóbal Arboleda was with him in El Renacer and said that the former president has an arrhythmia, anxiety levels, and high blood pressure, and insisted -according to him- “not to submit to a court that is not competent. “

Shortly after 4:00 p.m., a 911  ambulance entered the prison, but not before Martinelli had been declared stable and fit to attend the hearing.

According to the former first lady  Martinelli needs a catheterization, a procedure that she said cannot be performed at the Santo Tomás Hospital where he had previously been treated and declared stable by a Forensic Science Center team of specialists.

She said:  “He is depressed, and he should receive psychiatric treatment … He needs a psychiatrist to balance him, to medicate him, to treat him. “

The Directorate General of the Penitentiary System has the authority to take  Martinelli to the hearing, under a rule that states: “carrying out transfers and exits to judicial proceedings is an obligation of the prison…refusal to comply voluntarily,  the prison will be required to use the necessary coercives to ensure compliance. “