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In a unanimous decision, the three magistrates of Panama's Electoral Tribunal have lifted former President Mireya Moscoso's immunity from prosecution, a temporary election-related protection which she would have enjoyed until early next year by virtue of her status as president of the Arnulfista Party during last May's elections.

The Arnulfista magistrate on the multi-partisan tribunal, Dennis Allen, told El Panama America that investigations of Moscoso for allegedly misappropriating public funds by lavish spending on herself through the presidential secret fund and by diverting Taiwanese aid to this country's public health care system through a private foundation controlled by members of her inner circle were legitimate, that these is no indication that the probes are for the purposes of political persecution, and that so far due process has been observed in the investigations.

Prosecutors from the Public Ministry want to question the former president in those two cases, in which at the moment no formal charges have been filed against anybody. However, to question Moscoso it was necessary to lift her immunity.

Preliminary indications are that during the five years of her presidency Moscoso spent an average of more than $2,000 per week in public funds on clothing and jewelry. Also on the public tab were cosmetic surgery for members of the Mireyista inner circle. Details of secret fund spending published by the nation's Ombudsman (Defensor del Pueblo) also show a pattern of public expenditures --- such as car rentals during the campaign season --- that may be campaign-related. If that is the case it would also be a violation of the law, but the investigation and prosecution of that would be up to Electoral Prosecutor Gerardo Solís rather than the Public Ministry.

Much of the $71 million in aid from Taiwan destined for health care and public works in this country during the Moscoso administration was funneled through the Fundacion Mar del Sur, a private foundation allegedly created to avoid government oversight and red tape which was controlled by several of Mireya's aides and government ministers, including her sister Ruby Moscoso de Young. Although the foundation's records were missing when the Torrijos administration took office, through bank records, data provided by the government of Taiwan and such foundation documents that have been recovered investigators have begun to put together the puzzle of the foundation's activities and cash flows, and at this preliminary stage it appears that at least $200,000 worth of various assets was diverted to members of Mireya's inner circle.

The nation's former chief executive has hired attorney Rogelio Cruz, who served as attorney general during the Endara administration, to be her defense counsel in these cases.

In another development in the Fundacion Mar del Sur case, the bank accounts and other personal assets of former presidential advisor Alvaro Antadillas and of foundation coordinator Carlos Ramírez have been frozen by the Office of Patrimonial Responsibility (DRP) due to allegations that they obtained personal cars through the foundation.

Ramírez is the husband of the infamous "Durodollars Lady" Dalvis Xiomara Sánchez, who caused a public stir when she complained that some $40,000 in cash --- far more than her reported salary as a secretary at the Ministry of the Presidency would account for --- had been stolen from the freezer in her kitchen. As the Mireyistas left office, Sánchez and Ramírez were building a mansion near the beach at Play Esmeralda in San Carlos, though their reported or known assets and income would not explain how they got the money for this.

One of the allegations against the Fundacion Mar del Sur is that it botched the job of equipping a kidney dialysis center at Chitre, by purchasing inferior equipment and, by the end of the Moscoso administration, not having put the facility into service. Antadillas is the owner of a private dialysis clinic that would be affected by the opening of new competition from the public sector. (Several years ago Antadillas had this reporter served with papers accusing him of criminal defamation, because The Panama News published a story written by a prominent physician under a pseudonym about the near-monopoly that Antadillas's clinic had on kidney dialysis for patients in a US-funded health care program for pre-treaty Panamanian canal employees. This newspaper stood by its story and Antadillas backed down on his threat to prosecute.)



Also in this section:
Rumsfeld's visit
University of Panama plebiscite
Mireya stripped of her immunity
Assassination unsettles Venezuela
Panama News Briefs

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