The implications that the Government would have had for Panama if the Government granted the safe passage requested by the Managua regime to transfer former President Ricardo Martinelli to Nicaragua as a political asylum would have been tremendously damaging.

 But the Government has acted sensibly by refusing to grant safe passage because this man was convicted of a common crime and by an ordinary court, so his political asylum status is unacceptable. Such a request could not be accepted due to the same convention that was cited to request asylum. The Foreign Ministry has been very clear in warning that any action by the former president that has an impact on national politics will generate diplomatic consequences. Panama is not obliged to grant him anything, except a cell where he will spend the next ten years of his life. It has been a justified decision, based on the law, and now the convict must surrender to the local authority, to serve his sentence, because this has been nothing more than another of his ploys to escape and live under the cloak of impunity in a country where criminals like him have taken refuge. His alternative is to stay at the diplomatic headquarters, but none of the days he remains there will be deducted from his sentence. He chooses. --  LA PRENSA, Feb. 10.