• Panama.USA detains the children of former President Martinelli accused of money laundering

The life of Luis Enrique Martinelli and Ricardo Martinelli , children of the former President of Panama Ricardo Martinelli (2009-2014), turned 180 degrees in just 24 hours. They went from being at the Guatemala City Airport waiting for a private plane to take them to their country to being locked in a cell. Today they spend their first night in the isolation area of ​​the Mariscal Zavala military prison in Guatemala City, where they were sent this Tuesday by order of the Third and Fifth Criminal Sentences Court. It was no use fencing at La Aurora International Airporthis credential as alternate deputies of the Central American Parliament. Before boarding the flight, the Guatemalan Police detained them on the basis of an extradition request issued by the United States to be tried in a federal court in Brooklyn, New York, on charges of conspiracy to commit money laundering involving specific activity. .

Specifically, as reported by the US Department of Justice, the Martinelli brothers reportedly participated in a "massive bribery and money laundering scheme" involving Odebrecht SA , a global construction conglomerate based in Brazil, which paid more than 700 millions of dollars in bribes to government officials, public servants, political parties and others in Panama and other countries in exchange for obtaining and retaining business for the company. Thus, the children of Ricardo Martinelli are accused of being "intermediaries", by order of Odebrecht , to achieve $ 28 million in bribe payments destined between August 2009 and January 2014 to a "high-ranking government official in Panama, who was a close relative of the accused. " Thus, this alleged criminal activity coincided precisely with the years of his father's presidential mandate, Ricardo Martinelli , who has also been investigated for several corruption cases and came to be extradited in 2018 from the United States to Panama, where he was tried in the case of He spied on 150 opponents of his government between 2012 and 2014, including journalists and politicians, although in 2019 he was acquitted of all the charges of espionage and embezzlement of public funds. The former president spent a year incarcerated in a Miami federal prison and was subsequently taken to a Panama prison, where he remained for another year.

However, legal problems continue in his family and now they are splashing two of his children, who, according to the US Department of Justice, coinciding with his father's mandate, dedicated themselves to opening and managing secret bank accounts on behalf of companies. ghost in foreign jurisdictions. Through them, according to the investigation that has originated the extradition request, Luis Enrique and Ricardo Martinelli transferred and delivered the bribe payments to their relative, so that "they served as signatories to certain bank accounts of the phantom company and They sent bank transfers through accounts of companies that did not exist to hide the bribes.

"Many of these financial transactions were in US dollars and were made through US banks , some of which were located in New York, details the investigation carried out by the FBI corruption squad in the aforementioned US city. It is supported by one attorney from the Fraud Section of the Criminal Division, two attorneys from the Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section of the Criminal Division, and two deputy federal prosecutors from the United States Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York.

As reported by the Guatemalan Migration Institute , the sons of the former President of Panama entered the past June 30 through the Valle Nuevo land border between El Salvador and Guatemala, where they presented a passport and "accredited entry with the Central American Parliament card (Parlacen ) ". Thus, due to the emergency caused by the coronavirus , which has already caused more than 1,000 deaths in Guatemala, the borders are closed, except for Guatemalans, the diplomatic corps, and temporary and permanent residents, which was taken advantage of by the Martinelli brothers , thanks to their condition of substitute deputies of the Parlacen.

His intention was to leave this Monday on a private plane to Panama, although the Police frustrated their plans and took them to the Tower of Courts of Guatemala City , where they spent one night, waiting for the judge of the Court of Shift Patricia Salazar will inform them of the reason for her arrest. After the end of this hearing, both were returned handcuffed to a cell in the cellars of the judicial building. Upon arrival, from another cell a detainee shouted that 'there is a conjugal visit' and other detainees made howls of a wolf, mocking the two sons of the former Panamanian president.

"We are diplomats, so we did not expect this"

A few minutes later, the Panamanian Ambassador to Guatemala, Hugo Guiraud , accompanied by the Embassy's Economic Counselor, Gilberto Girón, arrived : "I have come to visit two Panamanians who are here and we are going to talk to them and see what the situation is because they are ours responsibility and is what we must do, "said the Ambassador. As soon as he arrived at the cell where the two brothers were, Guiraud leaned out at the bars from where Ricardo Martinelli told him that "we are diplomats, so we did not expect this."

At that time, the lawyer for the two detainees, Denis Cuesy , showed a paper to the Ambassador in which, in his opinion, it is shown that the arrest by the Guatemalan authorities is "illegal", given that they "enjoy the right to antejuicio "(immunity). Specifically, it was a document signed on July 6 of this year by the Secretary of the Board of Directors of the Central American Parliament, Carlos Rafael Fión , in which it is stated that "the files of the Parlacen of the year 2019 are the credentials issued by the Supreme Electoral Court of Panama, which certifies that Luis Enrique Martinelli and Ricardo Alberto Martinelli were elected as alternate deputies to the Central American Parliament by the State of Panama for the period between 2019 and 2024. "

Subsequently, Luis Enrique Martinelli was removed from the cell to take him to the Fifth Court of Criminal Sentence, whose judge ordered his entry into preventive detention in the Mariscal Zavala military prison, the same one in which several politicians are detained for corruption, including former Guatemalan President Otto Pérez Molina, since September 2015. Minutes earlier, the Third Court also communicated in writing the admission to the same prison for Ricardo Alberto Martinelli , who did not have to attend the hearing.

"Illegal arrest"

During Luis Enrique's hearing , attended by the Ambassador of Panama in Guatemala, his lawyer insisted that both he and his brother were arrested

"illegally, because prior to arresting them, they had to withdraw the immunity that they enjoy as alternate deputies of Parlacen." Furthermore, he recalled that, according to the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, "a diplomatic agent is inviolable and cannot be subjected to any form of arrest or detention, so the receiving State will treat him with due respect." However, the lawyer regretted that his client was "detained and exhibited before the press, thus violating Guatemala's ratified international agreements" and warned that this could carry a prison sentence of six months to three years.

However, these arguments were useless, since neither the Third nor the Fifth Court could be constituted, due to the fact that the coronavirus crisis has suspended the activities and terms of the courts, except to resolve constitutional questions. Only the judge of the Fifth Court appeared to resolve the entry into custody of Ricardo Alberto Martinelli , while the judge of the Third Court decreed in writing the same resolution for his brother. Both will have to wait for the situation to normalize and both courts will be set up to set up hearings to publicize the reasons why the United States requests the extradition of the children of the former Panamanian president, who must decide whether or not to voluntarily accept trial in New York. Her lawyer trusts that both will regain their freedom that day by availing themselves of their "immunity from alternate deputies in Parlacen", the same institution that was once labeled by the former president of Panama as a "cave of thieves", despite the fact that Shortly after, she was sworn in as legislator of this House, after leaving the Presidency in 2014.

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