business

In a February 2 press release disseminated over online business news services, in the semi-official SEDAR database for securities traded on Canadian stock exchanges and on the website of Petaquilla Minerals, the following assertion was made:

Petaquilla Minerals Ltd. is pleased to announce that on January 26, 2006, representatives of the Company met with the President of the Republic of Panama, Martin Torrijos Espino, his Minister of Commerce and Industries, Alejandro Ferrer, and the Vice-Minister, Manuel Jose Paredes, at the Presidential Palace in Panama City, Panama.

Present at the meeting, on behalf of the Company, were Richard Fifer, President of Petaquilla Minerals, S.A., Marco Tejeira, Director, Tom Byrne, manager of Corporate Communications, Octavio Choy, advisor to the Company on Commercialization, and certain shareholders and investors of the Company.

The objective of the meeting was to update the Panamanian government officials on recent developments at Petaquilla Minerals Ltd.'s gold and copper deposits. Mr. Fifer spoke at length with President Torrijos regarding the ongoing process of road construction, power line routing and other tasks being undertaken by the Company in the development of the mine site. The President of Panama expressed his enthusiasm for the Petaquilla project and reiterated his complete support for this very important aspect of the overall economic development plan for the country. President Torrijos was quoted as saying, ‘this project is of great importance for the economic well-being and enhancement of the quality of life for the people of the region where the deposit lies.’

But isn’t that odd --- Richard Fifer has been accused by prosecutors of embezzlement when he was governor of Cocle province under the Moscoso administration.

Those charges were filed before a Cocle court about a year ago, and after a period as a fugitive Fifer turned himself in and was released pending trial. There has been no news published since that time on developments in the case and three days after our telephoned query to Attorney General Ana Matilde Gómez’s office about the matter’s status The Panama News has still not received an answer. Panamanian court files are not a matter of public record, and in past contacts the prosecutor who had been handling the case in Cocle told The Panama News that he is forbidden to talk about the Fifer case.

Fifer’s company, Petaquilla Minerals, has over the past year made a practice of releasing false or misleading information over the Internet, most egregiously to the SEDAR database on which information about companies traded on Canadian stock exchanges is filed. Last year, while Fifer was on the run from police after an arrest warrant had been issued for him, the company posted a claim on SEDAR that there were no charges against him. But in fact prosecutors had charged that Fifer converted a $47,000 from the Spanish government for the Arias Madrid Brothers Museum in Penonome for his personal use and pilfered some $68,000 from the Cocle provincial government. Petaquilla Minerals shares are sold on exchanges in Canada and Germany, and over the counter in the United States. False claims of this nature are the stuff of which securities fraud charges are made, but the Canadian provinces which have jurisdiction over such matters do not often enforce such laws.

Fifer’s mining concession, which has existed under various names for more than 18 years without ever producing minerals for the world market, has nevertheless been actively promoted on the Toronto and Vancouver stock exchanges and more recently on the exchange in Frankfurt, Germany. Typically an announcement about the promise of gold, or about Panamanian government action in the company’s favor --- which generally can’t be verified in the Gaceta Oficial --- is followed by a brief spike in Petaquilla share prices.

A call to the presidential press office suggested an even bigger problem with the February 2 Petaquilla Minerals press release. The meeting “did not occur,” said presidential press aide José Hernández. Three days, later, however --- after an earlier version and then an update of this story were posted on the Internet --- Hernández called this reporter and corrected his denial, explaining that Torrijos had indeed been at a "private meeting" with Petaquilla investors.

A few hours after the first version of this story, which included Petaquilla's claim and the Presidencia's flat denial, was uploaded onto The Panama News website, the Petaquilla Minerals website posted a series of photographs at http://www.petaquilla.com/s/PhotoGallery.asp. These appear to have been taken in the cabinet room of the Palacio de Llas Garzas and feature various Petaquilla Minerals dignitaries with various government officials. One of them depicts a rather nervous-looking Martín Torrijos posing with Richard Fifer and Petaquilla press flack Octavio Choy. Another depicts Torrijos and Fifer sitting together at the cabinet table.