Suspended Attorney General did not commit crime — Bar Association Committee

The charges  against Panama’s suspended Attorney General Ana Matilde Gómez, must be dismissed as she did not commit any crime says a committee of the National Bar Association (CNA ).

The report detailed in La Prensa was produced between January and March of this year and prepared, at the request of the Association president Ruben Elias Rodriguez.

The commissioners (former judges Carlos Lucas Lopez and Esmeralda Troitiño and former president and former diplomat, Aristides Royo) caution that from the events described in the dossier, "intention or deliberate intention to cause damage to a person is not evident ", so the lawsuit should be dismissed. 

It says there are enough case laws of the Supreme Court of Justice  to realize that willful misconduct is necessary commit  the offense, and in this case there was none.

The lawyers reviewed the decision of the Supreme Court’s June 17, 2007, which declared unconstitutional the resolution authorizing eavesdropping a process followed by Gomez when investigating the La Chorrera Prosecutor,, Archimedes Sáez, in August 2005 for allegedly paying a bribe.

They cited three laws giving jurisdiction to the Attorney General and then to the Court, and concluded that indeed, there was confusion on the matter, since before the 2007 failure of the Public Ministry (MP) to act as the "competent authority" on wiretapping.

They stressed that although the Court declared unconstitutional, the resolution authorizing the interception by Gomez in an operation against Saez, in 2005, there was never intent.

On the three counts against Gómez-conspiracy, abuse of authority and abuse of power, Lopez, Royo Troitiño warned that none is applicable.

They explained that for conspiracy there must be, at least three "associates", but Sáez sued only two: to Gomez and former secretary general of Rigoberto González MP.

The alleged abuse of authority cited in Article 336 of the Penal Code, which states that for there to be a crime, the officer must make a "fact arbitrary unclassifiable." Although this is attributed to Gomez that fact itself is classified, Saez did not raise it because it is a misdemeanor.

The attorney did not even hear the conversations, but authorized the interception only after the accuser of Saez (Miguel Sambrano) allowed it. In fact, the phones’ were tapped by Sambrano.

The abuse of power charge was considered "absurd". that, Gómez "the highest authority of the Public Ministry, usurped the functions of investigation."

 Gomez insisted yesterday  says La Prensa that the Office of Administration never called the former general secretary of the Public Ministry Rigoberto Gonzalez, a key witness to testify. 

The secretary general of the Office of Administration, Nelson Rojas, never ordered his testimony, even after former Attorney General Jose Antonio Sossa and former Secretary of MP José María Castillo said that Gomez knew she had no constitutional powers to intercept phones.

The Attorney General who has been suspended from office since Feb. 5, does not understand why the no one in the Court no one knows the whereabouts of a motion for disqualification filed against Wilfredo Saenz, deputy magistrate José Abel Almengor and current speaker in this case – since February. 19

"Nobody knows where he is” Gomez said..