Gang of political thieves seeks shelter in the ‘Den’

Among the 92 candidates nominated for the Central American Parliament (Parlacen) for the 2024 general elections there are several people with pending cases in the courts of justice reports La Prensa.

If they manage to obtain a seat in the regional forum they will enjoy the same “privileges and immunities” awarded to deputies of the National Assembly  As candidates, they enjoy electoral criminal immunity.

Most Parlacen candidates with pending charges with justice were nominated by the party Realizing Goals (RM), founded by former president Ricardo Martinelli who has a sentence – not yet enforced – of 10 years in prison for money laundering in the New Business case. He is also called to trial, for the same crime, in the Odebrecht bribery case.

The fact that prosecuted people reach this regional forum has been the subject of controversy for years, to the point that Parlacen was called a “den of thieves Martinelli himself.

 On December 5, David Ochy was arrested, in Costa Rica. The businessman had been declared in default by the Second Liquidation Court for Criminal Cases, due to his involvement in the New Business case. His brother Daniel was already sentenced in this process to 96 months in prison.

Martinelli and Daniel Ochy were tried for the New Business case last May. On that occasion, David Ochy was not prosecuted because he enjoyed criminal electoral immunity, since he was participating as a presidential candidate in the RM primaries.

RM also opted for the brothers Ricardo Alberto and Luis Enrique Martinelli Linares sons of former president Martinelli. Both, convicted and imprisoned in New York, , for conspiracy to launder $28 million from Odebrecht, were nominated as substitutes for Carlos Outten and Giselle Burillo, respectively. They are the first on the RM Parlacen list.

The Martinelli Linares brothers are already members of Parlacen, since last August, when they were sworn in as substitutes. In this way they avoided the trial of the Blue Apple case, in which they are also being investigated. His case is now in the hands of the Supreme Court, but the current status of this case is unknown.

Another of the RM figures questioned for his intention to reach Parlacen is Jaime Ford Castro, former Minister of Public Works, nominated as deputy major. Ford will also be prosecuted for Odebrecht bribery. The trial was postponed until July 2024.

Meanwhile, last August, the discharge anti-corruption prosecutor, Ariel De Gracia, requested to declare guilty the former Minister of Labor and Labor Development, Alma Cortéscurrent undersecretary of the RM party, and two other people, for the crime of “unjustified enrichment.”

Cortés, who is a candidate for substitute deputy for José Ramos, also faces a process for embezzlement, due to the collection of travel expenses to attend a series of meetings of the International Labor Organization (ILO), in Geneva, for an amount of $49,000.

The former president Juan Carlos Varela (2014-2019), who was also called to trial for the Odebrecht case, leads the party list Panameñista to Parlacen.

Among the Parlacen list of candidates for free nomination, Mayte Pellegrini appears. The lawyer was nominated by the PRD deputy and presidential candidate Zulay Rodríguez, as a substitute deputy.

Pellegrini is one of nine people called to trial in the Financial Pacific case.

The alternate representative of Cambio Democrático (CD), Kristelle Getzler de Lima, wife of Former Minister of Economy and Finance, Frank De Lima, has been requested by the Blue Apple case, but since she is a Central American parliamentarian, she must be prosecuted by the Supreme Court and not by an ordinary court.

In a hearing held on November 16, Judge María Eugenia López Arias (as prosecutor) requested a five-year prison sentence for Getzler for  money laundering.

In the Blue Apple case, there are already eight people convicted including the former Ministers of Public Works, Federico Suárez and Jaime Ford Castro, and the merchant Riccardo Francolini, former president of the board of directors of the Savings Bank and member of the  inner circle zero of Martinelli. held.

Meanwhile, the plenary session of the Supreme Court issued a provisional dismissal in favor of the parliamentarian Giselle Burillo, within an investigation for  embezzlement, through the division of several contracts of the Micro Authority, Small and Medium Enterprises (Ampyme), for $21.6 million. Burillo was director of Ampyme in the Martinelli government.

The investigation began on December 13, 2014. The ruling indicated that despite there being a breach ofpublic procurement law there is no evidence of an impact on the state’s economic assets or any action. of appropriation, subtraction, or embezzlement that typifies the crime of embezzlement.