Supreme Court judge victim of Martinelli era wiretaps

A SUPREME Court Judge is among the growing number of victims of wiretapping during the Ricardo Martinelli presidency, who are filing criminal complaints, against those responsible for ‘’crimes against the inviolability of secrecy and privacy.”

 On Tuesday, January 20, Lawyer Angel Gomez presented a criminal complaint on behalf of the judge, Victor Benavides after visiting the offices of the Assistant Attorney General to identify transcripts of wiretaps reports La Prensa.

Gomez said that a protected witness revealed in the record that Benavides had been monitored and wiretapped since 2012.
Meanwhile, political analyst Jose Isabel Blandon, who was quoted by the prosecution, said the equipment used to intercept telephone calls was highly sophisticated, as it allowed access to cell phones even when switched off, and could locate photos , emails and messages from WhatsApp.
It also allowed the monitoring of group conversations and could activate the phones of their victims remotely.
Blandon said that this is “a flagrant violation of human rights of all citizens object of such acts.”
He said the information held by the prosecution is only a fraction of all wiretaps that included businessmen, politicians and media, but it’s enough to bring a successful prosecution.
Journalist Rubén Polanco,of La Prensa, confirmed that two emails sent to him by the deputy Zulay Rodríguez were monitored.
Polanco said that the tap was obtained from th e-mail account brat.pty507@gmail.com on June 5 and 9, 2012. The first was regarding a meeting held in La Chorrera by the legal sector Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD against the Sovereign Savings Fund. The email also contained the cell numbers of those responsible for the legal sector in La Chorrera.
The second email contained a letter about a complaint presented by Rodriguez, calling on the competent authority to investigate the wiretaps made to her phone and that of her husband, Álvaro Testa, which was uploaded to YouTube.
The complaint was lodged by Rodriguez against then-President Ricardo Martinelli before the Public Prosecutor on November 24, 2011, and was sent to the Supreme Court.
Blanca Gomez, president of the National Association of Journalists said that this which has even endangered the physical integrity of journalists and victims of taps.
José Luis Varela, son of the Panameñista deputy of the same name, went to the office and identified three emails exchanged with his family that were tapped. He said it was mails exchanged with his family. The deputy is brother of President Juan Carlos Varela.