Peru Ex-president’s suicide renews  spotlight on Odebrecht corruption links in Panama

The suicide of former Peruvian President Alan García, when he was to be arrested for alleged corruption offenses, has shocked Peru and thrown the spotlight  nack on the Odebrecht case which has reverberated around Latin America, including and Panama  where at least  $90 million was distributed in bribes and donations to political parties and where the Brazilian contractor has been favored with millions of contractual dollars.Among those facing charges are sons of former president Ricardo Martinelli, the former Minister of Public Works and other high profile figures in the Martinelli administration, but in Panama the wheels of justice turn more slowly.

Garcia,69 shot himself  when police and prosecutors arrived at his home with a warrant for his arrest.

That order was issued  after t Odebrecht, within the framework of the collaboration agreement with the Peruvian Justice, revealed that former presidential secretary Luis Nava and his son José Nava received $4 million from the company toget achieve the construction contract for Line 1 of the Lima Metro. In Panama, Odebrecht got the contracts for the Cinta Costera 1,2, and 3; Metro Line 1 and 2 and and an  extension to Tocumen International Airport, and the construction of the airport’s Terminal 2 and major construction projects in Colon and Panama City.

Peru’s ,  Interior Minister Carlos Moran  explained that the arrest operation was in charge of the prosecutor Henry Amenábar and a group of agents who identified themselves to before García and informed him that he was going to be arrested.The ex-leader  requested a moment to make a call to his lawyer and went up to his room, on the second floor, of his house, where he locked himself on up and “within a few minutes a firearm shot was heard.”

“The police forced the door and found Garcia in a sitting position and with a wound on his head,”

The minister said explained that the ex-president governor was immediately transferred to the hospital and said that “the intervention of the police has adhered to established protocols, supported by a diligence ordered by a judge in the framework of an emblematic case such as Odebrecht.”

Along with García, the arrests of Luis Nava, presidential secretary under the Government of the leader of the Aprista Party, and Miguel Atala, both close collaborators of the former president and designated as his front men were also ordered.

Hours later he former Minister of Transportation and Communications and Housing and Construction, turned himself in  as well as five other ex-officers of Garcia’s second term in office.

In Colombia ther have been unexplained deaths pf suspects  In Panama, dozens of alleged bribe recipients continue to walk the streets.