Ploys delay $20 million Italy-Panama probe

LEGAL ploys to delay justice are being used in a $20 million Italian fraud case linked to Panama and the government of ex-president Ricardo Martinelli.

The judge of the preliminary investigations of the Court of Naples was again forced to postpone the opening of oral trial in the case about the alleged deviation of $20 million in the frustrated construction of four modular prisons in Panama by the Italian Svemark consortium.

Processed in the case are the Italian Valter Lavitola, “director” of corruption operations between the company and the Panama Government, and Ángelo Capriotti, partner of Svemark.

Lavitola’s lawyers demanded that the process be transferred by territorial jurisdiction from Naples, where the investigations began seven years ago, to Rome arguing that the accused reside in the Italian capital.

It is a legal ploy that seeks to delay the case for international corruption in Panama.

and focus on the time lapse as happened with the Finmeccanica process.

However, the chief prosecutor of the Naples court, Vincenzo Piscitelli introduced the aggravating circumstance of it being a crime configured with illicit economic transactions outside the Italian territory so that the statute of limitations was automatically extended

Panama requested to be an accusatory civil party, which, if validated by the judge, confers the country the right to pursue through the court’s full compensation for damages caused.

Meanwhile, the other accused, Capriotti, former chief of Mauro Velocci in Svemark, continues in jail accused of money laundering and fraudulent  bankruptcy

He entered prison in early April after authorities discovered that he had created a network of screen societies to launder money obtained from the fraudulent bankruptcy of his company and other illicit acts related to the misappropriation of several buildings.