Eisenmann hauled in for questioning

The lawyer, journalists and activists who are helping this reporter to confront a criminal defamation charge brought by a company owned by Bocas real estate scam artists didn't have time to deal with that case on the morning of March 24. There was a more pressing matter at hand. "Bobby Eisenmann has been arrested," Miguel Antonio informed me over the phone, so our planned meeting would have to wait.

Along with Bernal, Transparency International's Rafael Pérez Jaramillo and a number of others, I also dropped what I was doing to spread the word around the world via the Internet.

That morning a half-dozen agents of the Judicial Technical Police (PTJ) headed by the chief of criminal investigations of that organization descended on the office of the Foundation for the Development of Citizens' Liberty, which is headed by La Prensa founder and former publisher I. Roberto Eisenmann Jr. They had orders to take Eisenmann into custody and bring him in to be interrogated by prosecutors, in connection with a criminal defamation (alumnia e injuria) charge lodged this past February by Attorney General José Antonio Sossa. In a La Prensa column Eisenmann had stated that Sossa "protects delinquents and persecutes the press," and that statement is the basis of the charge.

(It is the editorial position of The Panama News and the personal belief of this journalist that Eisenmann had every right to write what he did, not only because everybody has the right to an opinion about the performance of a public official but more importantly because Eisenmann's assertion is an assertion of fact and that as such it is an honest and accurate statement of the truth of the matter.)

Eisenmann, who had ignored three previous summonses, was subjected to an interrogation for the purpose of trial testimony (indagatoria) that lasted several hours. He was then released from custody, under the condition that he can not travel outside of Panama. Upon his release Eisenmann vowed to prove his assertion and claimed that when the time comes he will present some "surprising" evidence about Sossa.

The politicians maintained their silence about the matter, and a few days later PRD presidential candidate Martín Torrijos, who is allied with the Christian Democratic movement (now the Partido Popular) from whence Sossa came to public office, held a long private meeting with Sossa.

However, most of this country's journalists and most international organizations created to defend freedom of the press rallied to Eisenmann's defense. The InterAmerican Press Association opined that Eisenmann's arrest may have been especially for the purpose of discouraging free expression in Panama. Journalists Against Corruption called the prosecutors' action "an attack against freedom of expression" and a "show of authoritarianism." The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists held the incident up as another example of why defamation ought to be a civil rather than a criminal matter. The Paris-based Journalists Without Borders said that "in Panama the principal threat to freedom of the press is judicial harassment" of this sort. Panama's Colegio Nacional de Periodistas, Forum de Periodistas and Foro 2020 all denounced Eisenmann's detention, as did the editorials of most of the country's newspapers and the on-air pronouncements of many radio talk show hosts.

Taking the contary position were several frequent Internet defenders of Panama's status quo and pro-PRD journalist Demetrio Olaciregui, who used to edit a supplement in the defunct Christian Democrat daily El Universal, all of whom argued that Eisenmann and other Panamanian journalists are not above the law.

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Cops and prosecutors haul Eisenmann in for interrogation