Justice of Panama leaves the 10-year sentence against former President Martinelli firm

The 10-year and 6-month prison sentence for money laundering handed down last July against former Panamanian president Ricardo Martinelli (2009-2014) was final this Friday after the Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ) rejected a cassation appeal, the last legal means to invalidate it.

The Second Criminal Chamber decided “not to admit the appeal of cassation in the merits, formalized by Mr. Carlos Eugenio Carrillo Gomilla, as a judicial representative of Ricardo Alberto Martinelli Berrocal,” says Edict Number 26 published on February 2 by the Secretariat of that criminal instance.

This resolution makes Martinelli, 71, the first former president of Panama sentenced to prison for corruption in the country’s democratic history.

In accordance with the law and Panamanian jurists, the sentence confirmed this Friday disables Martinelli from running as a presidential candidate in the elections on May 5 with his new party Realizing Goals (RM).

The appeal was brought by the High Court for the Settlement of Criminal Cases on December 11 to the Second Criminal Chamber of the CSJ, which, when rejecting it, must return the file to the first instance that issued the conviction, so that, already executed in final, it establishes the way in which the conduct or arrest of the former president will be effective, legal sources explained to EFE.

The unprecedented conviction against the former president for money laundering in the case known as “New Business”, the purchase with public funds from Editorial Panamá América S.A. (Epasa), also obliges him to pay a fine of 19,221,600.48 dollars, as indicated by the sentence of last July of the Court Liquidating Criminal Cases, in charge of Judge Baloísa Marquínez.

This ruling also orders “the dissolution of two companies and the (de)commissement of the shares of a publishing house, in favor of the State, as well as the administration of movable and immovable property of said publishing house,” according to the judicial information.

In this case, whose investigation began in 2017, in addition to Martinelli, four other people were convicted of money laundering, while 10 were acquitted, the Judicial Body said.

For the purchase of Epasa, 43.91 million dollars were collected in December 2010, according to the Prosecutor’s Office, which affirms that Martinelli “contacted contractors, contributed money” and was a “beneficiary” by being the “holder of 60% of the shares” of the publisher.

Martinelli, who calls himself a “political persecuted”, also faces in Panama charges for money laundering in the case of the bribes of the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht, whose trial has been postponed several times and is expected to finally begin this year.

For Odebrecht’s plot they will also go to a special trial, for being deputies of the Central American Parliament (Parlacen), two sons of Martinelli, who already paid prison in the United States after admitting there that they received from the Brazilian construction company and on orders from their father, according to the judicial version, 28 million dollars in bribes.

In Spain, former President Martinelli is investigated in a case of alleged corruption for bribes that the Spanish construction company FCC confessed to having paid in Panama, and in another for espionage of a woman in Mallorca.

In January 2023, the United States Government sanctioned former President Martinelli and accused him of being involved in “large-scale corruption.”