Jude Webber reports in Financial Times of the arrest warrant issued by Interpol for Martinelli who is wanted here in Panama on political espionage and corruption charges.
The arrest warrant comes amid a gathering storm over $59m in alleged bribes paid on Mr Martinelli’s watch in the Central American nation by Brazilian construction company Odebrecht. Interpol has already issued wanted notices for Mr Martinelli’s two sons on allegations they accepted bribes from Odebrecht.
They have denied the allegations, labelling them “groundless”. Panamanian television station TVN aired what appeared to be an Interpol red notice, complete with the former leader’s photograph and fingerprints. There was no notification on the Interpol website but Marcos Córdoba, the police commissioner assigned to Panama’s judicial investigations directorate, confirmed the notice to Reuters and other media.
Mr Martinelli, a supermarket magnate, has been living in what he terms self-imposed exile in Miami and could not immediately be reached for comment. However, he has long protested his innocence and on Twitter blamed his successor, Juan Carlos Varela, for “diverting attention” from attacks on his own performance “by attacking the man who he is losing sleep over”.
In a letter to the Financial Times last year in the wake of the Panama Papers scandal revealing the tax havens of the rich and famous, he said he was in Miami “fleeing the persecution of those tax dodgers and money launderers that I pursued during my administration and who today have managed single-handedly to deal an irreparable blow to the image of my country”.
Panama last year requested the extradition of Mr. Martinelli, who served from 2009-14 and presided over an infrastructure and economic boom. Mr Martinelli, who has had business dealings with Donald Trump and was in office when the US president opened his tower in the Panamanian capital, is charged with ordering surveillance, paid for with public money, of more than 150 people, including opposition and union leaders, magistrates, members of Congress and journalists during his time in office. He has also been accused of insider trading and embezzlement.
The Odebrecht scandal, meanwhile, is gathering pace with testimonies from 77 former executives expected soon to be released by the Supreme Court. The former executives of Odebrecht, which is building a metro line in Panama, have admitted to paying bribes in Panama and nine other Latin American countries which have sent shockwaves around the region.
In Panama, Mr Varela denied receiving campaign donations from Odebrecht, as alleged by Ramón Fonseca of the law firm at the centre of the Panama Papers scandal and a former adviser.