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Also in this section: Panama News Briefs
Penal Code review completed With a canal referendum debate possibly pending this month and a number of other things ranging the silly to the serious, the National Assembly may not get to it before its session ends on June 30. However, a presidential commission has submitted a proposed revision of the Penal Code to President Torrijos, who has been vetoing criminal laws under the argument that changes should await the more comprehensive code revision. Reportedly the changes sent to the president would increase the maximum penalties for the worst crimes from 20 years in prison to 35. This particular legislature is quite capable of passing major pieces of legislation overnight without reading them, but ordinarily something as far-reaching as a general criminal code revision would take weeks of committee hearings and debates before being passed. If the matter can't be taken up in the current session, Torrijos could call a special legislative session or the code could be introduced in the session that begins September 1.
No funds for seized drug gang assets Attorney General Ana Matilde Gómez complains that she has no budget, nor are the legal procedures in place, to adequately care for or dispose of assets seized in a recent series of raids against an international drug operation allegedly headed by Pablo Rayo Montaño. In the course of a series of raids in at least six countries resulting from US charges that a gang was moving 15 tons of cocaine into the United States every month, authorities here have seized an airplane, a fleet of 34 cars, 39 bank accounts, some $340,000 in cash, 40 weapons, several businesses that had employed dozens of people and a vast real estate empire that included nearly 10 kilometers of beachfront property in Colon province, entire islands off of both of our costs and many apartments and homes, some of them palatial. The value of all these things are considerable, but if they are mothballed for the years that it takes for trials and appeals, much of that value will be lost. As an example of the problem, some of the properties seized from former dictator Manuel Antonio Noriega in 1989 are still in legal limbo, already having lost most of their value. Gómez wants the legislature to pass some new laws that allow efficient management and disposal of such seized property, with those who are accused but later exonerated being compensated for the value of what was taken.
Telemetro broadcasts gangster threats The PRD-aligned MEDCOM conglomerate continues to be the voice of gangland threats. After an unsuccessful assassination attempt by El Chorrillo's El Pentagono hoodlum gang against convicted drug dealer and former DEA informant David Viteri and his brother Alberto, David Viteri went on Telemetro to tell the nation that in just five minutes he could wipe out his gangland rivals. Alberto Viteri was wounded in the Curundu Flats ambush, which left 16 AK-47 bullet marks in David Viteri's armored Honda 4x4 gangstermobile. Prosecutors say they're investigating whether David Viteri's repeated televised statements about what he wants or intends to do to the El Pentagono members amount to crimes, but there are no official investigations or criticism of MEDCOM for giving air time for such declarations. MEDCOM, which owns the RPC and Telemetro broadcast networks and the Cable Onda cable TV system, is largely owned and controlled by relatives of former President Ernesto Pérez Balladares and, reputedly, Toro himself.
Flying fists of kung fu fury? Actually, Panameñistas are not historically known to be fond of things Chinese. It does seem, however, that with the right horribly dubbed trash talk sound track the party could have made a chop sockie classic. On May 28, the party held internal elections in Arraijan and legislator Argentina Arias, who supports Juan Carlos Varela for the party presidency, was defeated in her bid to become a party convention delegate. The following day in the National Assembly's Salon Thelma King, a colleague and one of the leaders of a rival party faction, José Isabel Blandón, said something to Arias about the election result, and she took it as a taunt. Then her fists began to fly --- reportedly without any shouting in Chinese, however. Afterwards, Arias defended her decision to slug Blandón: "Deputy Blandón attacked me and offended me, and thus I reacted in this way. It's important the he learns to respect, not only Deputy Arias, but all the women of Panama."
Liberals kick Alba out of assembly --- or try The Partido Liberal Nacional has voted to purge one of its members from its ranks and remove him from his seat in the National Assembly. Rogelio Alba, a deputy from Kuna Yala, who has been caught in the act smuggling liquor and cigarettes out of the Colon Free Zone and has been accused of a number of other acts of public corruption, lost the final round of an intra-party process that has lasted for many months. Now, however, he says he'll appeal to the Electoral Tribunal. That might keep him in the legislature for more months to come, but as he appears to have no powerful allies, Alba appears unlikely to be able to string out his presence until the 2009 elections. The Panamanian constitution, which gives the political parties more power than the voters, prohibits recall elections but allows parties to remove wayward legislators.
Arosemena criticized over AMP rental The Panama Maritime Authority (AMP) is tearing down its old wooden premises in Diablo and building a new headquarters on the same site, so needs to find temporary quarters. That has been done by way of a no-bid $1.49 million contract to rent space in the Edificio Pan Canal, an Albrook building owned by one Lincoln García Méndez --- who happens also to have been the principal fundraiser for the political campaigns of Second Vice President Rubén Arosemena, a former legislator who in the Torrijos administration also heads the AMP. Arosemena was traveling in Europe while the story broke, so it was left to underlings --- also, probably not coincidentally, fellow members of the governing coalition's junior partner Partido Popular --- to explain that there was no other place where the AMP's offices might have moved.
Court overrules city in building documents case The Supreme Court has reversed a lower court and struck down the arguments of the Panama City municipal government that copyrighted building plans submitted to city officials are privileged information and unavailable to neighbors of a proposed project who want to see the plans to determine if they will file objections. The case arose in Paitilla, which gets twice-a-day traffic jams, where a 53-story residential tower was proposed. When neighbors, including former President Guillermo Endara, went down to city offices to see the plans, they were told that the plans were not open to public inspection because they were copyrighted by the architect. That was upheld the lower level court, but the Supreme Court ruled that while people may not have the right to photocopy detailed plans that are subject to copyright, they do have the right to see the documents on file with the city to determine if they meet various legal requirements. Under a recent urban planning law, there is a right to public hearings about major construction projects, and this ruling blocked an attempt to carve a major exception into that law.
Strange claims in explosives case Businessman Cristobal Salerno, a member of the PRD's Frente Empresarial who served on the board of directors of the state-owned Caja de Ahorros bank during the Pérez Balladares administration, is on the lam after a police raid uncovered a cache of grenades and plastic explosives on the Avenida Peru premises of a business he owns. However, the man has his defenders, both attorneys trying to get the arrest order canceled and old political friends. One of the latter, former Labor Minister Mitchell Doens, has assured the mainstream media that Salerno is not involved in trafficking arms to one of Colombia's various irregular combatant groups, but is merely a collector of such keepsakes as grenades, TNT and plastic explosives. Salerno, in a handwritten letter submitted to the court by one of his lawyers, puts a different spin on the case. He was just holding the war materiel for Luis Varcacía, who headed the Institutional Protection Service (SPI, which included the presidential guards) during Toro's administration. Varcacía, who's having some health problems of late, told El Panama America that "I'm not a dynamiter" and that he knows nothing about the explosives.
Multiple challenges to new university law The 2005 changes to the national law governing the University of Panama, as interpreted by the university administration, are being challenged in separate court cases. Law professor Miguel Antonio Bernal is challenging the interpretation that allows Gustavo García de Paredes to seek another term as rector. In a lawsuit impugning the rector's candidacy Bernal says that under both the new law and the old one as interpreted by a prior Supreme Court case, García de Paredes is barred from seeking another consecutive term. Meanwhile, retired professor Federico Ardila Acuña, who was ruled off of the ballot for rector because he isn't currently teaching at the university, has appealed to the Supreme Court, which has agreed to hear the case.
Prominent lawyer accused in traffic deaths Carlos Jones, a prominent Panama City attorney, is being charged with homicide in the deaths of a couple into whose car he crashed his own vehicle in the early hours of June 4. Jones has been ordered held in jail, but at the time these news briefs were written had remained in a hospital room under police guard while his attorneys seek to have a judge set bail. There have been conflicting reports in the mainstream media about when, whether and which blood alcohol tests were performed on Jones, whose bad driving police and prosecutors blame for the fatal accident.
Ex-cop stabbed to death at La Joya Former police officer Arcadio Raúl Ospino Chaverra, who was being held i La Joya Penitentiary while awaiting trial on rape charges, was stabbed to death by other inmates on June 5. Police told La Prensa that they believe that two other jailed former cops were the assailants.
Gringo swindle suspect deported One Larry Edwards (Cunningham), one step ahead of US justice when Costa Rican police raided his home, made it across the border to Bocas del Toro on May 23. However, on the 26th Panamanian cops nabbed him while he was walking down the street near the Via Veneto Hotel. The 59-year-old US citizen was wanted by the FBI for an alleged $200 million fraud, and was promptly deported to the United States.
Colon drivers license moratorium The Transit and Land Transportation Authority (ATTT) has declared a 15-day moratorium on the issuance of driving licenses at its Colon offices. The problem has to do with some irregularities that are being investigated with respect to driver education programs in the province. The authority has been cracking down on driver ed schools around the country, many of which it has found don't meet the required standards.
Bocas commuter plane mishap Landing in a driving rain on Bocas del Toro's Isla Colon, a commuter plane from Panama City skidded off the end of the runway and into a mangrove swamp on June 1. The pilot and co-pilot were injured, but the 18 other people aboard suffered only fright and inconvenience.
Waterspout off of Costa del Este On the afternoon of May 25 some residents of the east side of Panama City got to see one of the most spectacular --- if frightening --- of our meteorological phenomena, a waterspout. The twister struck over Panama Bay near Costa del Este. Nobody was hurt, but a lot of water got sucked up into a funnel cloud and dumped on the capital.
Chávez coming here? June 22 will be the 180th anniversary of the Anfictionic Congress at which Simón Bolívar and other South American independence leaders met in Panama and attempted to arrange a new order in the lands freed from Spanish colonial rule. Due to the opposition of oligarchs the meeting failed to accomplish the liberators' objectives, but the event is still fondly remembered in Latin American history and there will be ceremonies to mark the anniversary here. The big question is whether Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez will come. Some local groups have invited him to lay a wreath at the statue of Bolívar in the Casco Viejo, but there's no confirmation yet about whether Chávez will come.
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