Martinelli CIA confession said national shame

Shock and dismay spread through Panama’s political and business circles and in social media on Saturday, May 26 as news of ex-president Ricardo Martinelli’s latest ploy to avoid facing justice in Panama became public.

“I think it’s a great shame, a national shame for any Panamanian that a president or an ex-president confess to the world that he was an instrument of the CIA, ” said  businessman and founder of La Prensa Roberto Eisenmann reacted after, a letter, was released  in which  Martinelli confessed his submission to instructions made by the CIA, during his administration between 2009 and 2014.

In the four-page letter addressed to the “Government and the people of the United States,” Martinelli calls himself a “martyr”, “persecuted politician” and victim of a “vendetta”.

“Even [Manuel Antonio] Noriega did not manage to confess his relationship with the CIA in the open and abrupt manner,” as Martinelli has done,  said Eisenmann.

He points  to the fact that, in the  letter, there is a “total absence of  accusations” faced by  the ex-governor “with respect to the theft of the public treasury.” I

In the Supreme Court of Justice, there are, at least, nine open cases in which Martinelli is investigated for the alleged commission of different crimes involving corruption and embezzlement.

“He insists that he is politically persecuted and that [Juan Carlos] Varela seeks revenge, which is an absolute and total lie,” the businessman added.

For Eisenmann, what Martinelli is looking for is to find in the new authorities of the State Department of the United States someone “who feels sorry for him and allows him to stay in the United States, but outside of prison”.

That is to say, “to continue his flight with respect to Panamanian justice – and to remain in the United States”.

“There he has a $9 million mansion, yacht,  and plane, for a potential super luxury life,” said Eisenmann.

Antipatriotic
“Martinelli’s letter is another demonstration of his anti-patriotic behavior, as was corruption, organized looting of the state coffers and constant attempts to destroy the democratic institutional framework of the Panamanian state,” tweeted. Minister of Housing and Territorial Planning, Mario Etchelecu.

“And when we thought we had seen, read and heard all the worst … what a sadness, what a great shame!” Was the message said businessman Felipe Chapman on Twitter.

Former foreign minister Jorge Eduardo Ritter said on Twitter that “I still find it hard to believe that a Panamanian president wrote to the people and Government of the United States confessing to having” followed instructions from the CIA. “

Martinelli ’s letter is dated May 14, 10 days before he ordered his lawyers to abandon the legal remedies he had filed in US courts to avoid being extradited.