Court suspends Panama ombudsperson from office

Panama’s Ombudsperson has been suspended from office and prevented from leaving the country by Supreme Court Justice Jose Ayu Prado.

The order was handed down Tuesday July 24 based on  charges of embezzlement filed against her.

Ayu Prado also gave prosecutors two months to finish their investigation of the matter.
At the hearing, Attorney General Ana Belfon requested that Portugal not be allowed to visit the Ombudsman's Office, but Ayu Prado rejected the request.
Portugal appealed the decision of the judge but it was upheld.
The request for the hearing came after Belfon reviewed the contracts issued by Portugal to the company Imaginarium Studio for consultancy fees of $250,000 that included the development of a web page.
In addition, Belfon cited a $200,000 contract granted for customer service training.
Criticism for alleged cost overruns in contracts and luxuries purchased by the Ombudsperson has been rampant by members of civil society, who said that the National Assembly should act on the matter.
"This decision should have been made a week ago,"said Fernando Díaz, a member of the Citizens Alliance. "She should have been removed from office."
According to Diaz, Portugal does not have the "confidence" of the citizenship to continue in her position.
"Obviously there has been a bad management of the resource of the state which has generating much suspicion about the recipients of the contracts with extremely high costs," he said.
Carlos Lee, of the Citizens Alliance for Justice, said that the National Assembly has delayed the case intentionally.
"The slowness reflects a disregard of citizens who expect members to make a decision," he said.
Former President of the National Bar Association Rubén Elías Rodríguez said that the National Assembly is doing damage to its credibility. According to Rodriguez, there is sufficient evidence to make a decision.