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Tourist visa changes may be short-lived
City has second thoughts on getting rid of the Avenida Central Peatonal

Urban planning in Panama, such as it has been and may become

Emancipated high school girls expelled

The strange tale of Captain Sherman

Flowing in the streets of the capital
Panama News Briefs

Panama News Briefs

Dixon charges prosecutor with abuse of authority

The concepts of judicial independence, conflict of interest and accountability for actions in public office are all in play, as well as the proffered one about the government not exceeding its powers, in an unusual criminal case. Anti-corruption prosecutor Maribel Cornejo, investigating a bad check complaint against several functionaries at the National Bank of Panama, encountered some evidence that the late Supreme Court magistrate César Pereira Burgos had been involved in the scam. She continued her investigation. In so doing, according to the Supreme Court's presiding magistrate Graciela Dixon, Cornejo committed the crime of overstepping the bounds of her authority. You see, high court magistrates have immunity from prosecution that can only be lifted by the National Assembly. The current National Assembly, in turn, has taken the position that it has no power to investigate a Supreme Court magistrate. In a prior high profile scandal over allegations that the former legislature was bribed to approve the long-stalled CEMIS project in Colon, the high court ruled that if a legislator who has immunity is involved in a criminal act in conjunction with non-legislators without immunity, that deputy's immunity from prosecution also protects his or her accomplices. Now this principle is being extended to the dead --- if a deceased former magistrate was, while he was in office, a party to a crime, then the surviving accomplices enjoy that judge's immunity from investigation and prosecution and if any prosecutor doesn't respect that immunity it's a crime. Attorney General Ana Matilde Gómez accepted Dixon's complaint and in addition to the criminal case against Cornejo, began an administrative investigation. She did not, however, suspend or fire Cornejo from her job. If the case against Cornejo goes to trial, the judge that gets the case will be under pressure to convict because the Supreme Court has supervision over all lower judges and sometimes uses this power to fire or otherwise discipline trial judges who rule the "wrong way."

Third PTJ chief in six months

Although a proposal to break up the Judicial Technical Police (PTJ) and move most of its pieces from the Public Ministry into the National Police that are part of the Ministry of Government and Justice did not get before the National Assembly's regular session, the PTJ still may not be long for this world. And thus the appointment of prosecutor José Ayú Prado as the third PTJ chief in six months, after a scandal about the sale of weapons from the institution's evidence rooms to drug gangs and armed Colombian factions, may be ephemeral.

Thirteen percent of cops under investigation

El Panama America reports that some 13 percent of all of the National Police force members are under investigation for some suspected act of misconduct or another. The force's Professional Responsibility Office (DRP) has investigated more than 2,500 officers since 2005, and these investigations have resulted in 290 firings and a number of lesser penalties.

Raid recovers DIIP, DEA jackets

In a July 11 drug raid on an apartment building in Rio Abajo, police encountered a black plastic garbage bag stashed in a bathroom ceiling. In that bag were jackets of the National Police's DIIP detective squad and the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). Gangsters impersonating police and stealing drugs from other gangsters is a part of the underworld scene here. If the jackets are the genuine articles and not imitations, drug gangs' penetration of the Panamanian police and the US DEA would also be nothing new.

Immigration director chosen as ombudsman

Nobody in the legislature had much complained about the job that interim ombudswoman (Defensora del Pueblo) Mónica Pérez had been doing and she sought the regular post, but when the secret ballots cast by deputies in the National Assembly were counted she hardly got any votes. Receiving 58 of the assembly's possible 78 votes was Migracion director Ricardo Vargas. He'll serve out the remainder of the five-year term to which Liborio García was elected but from which he was shortly thereafter removed over a pretext about alleged political activities but really about controversial statements on the subject of domestic violence. The Supreme Court has rejected García's immediate challenge to his ouster but sent it back to a trial court rather than definitively reject it on its merits.

Retired soldier, cop to head Migracion

President Torrijos has appointed another of Noriega's boys to a top government post. Clovis Sinisterra Frías, who was an officer in the old Panama Defense Forces before the 1989 US invasion, stayed on with the replacement National Police and retired from that in 2002 with the rank of commissioner. Because the National Assembly appointed former immigration director Ricardo Vargas as the new national ombudsman (Defensor del Pueblo) the top job at Migracion became vacant and Sinisterra was the president's choice to fill the spot. Migracion has long held a reputation as one of the most corrupt parts of the Panamanian government. Given President Torrijos's noteworthy protection of convicted Canadian child molester Ronald H. Kelly, who was allowed to immigrate into this country by way of a corrupt decision of the prior administration, it doesn't seem that correcting immigration abuses is one of Martín's priorities.

Legislators retain privileges

Remember the PRD's promise that the legislature would shed its own privileges, such as duty-free imported cars, free telephone service and so on? Never mind. In a late night vote in the last days of the regular legislative session, the deputies reneged on that one. Both opposition and ruling coalition deputies voted to retain the privileges.

Amado: overseas absentee voting will be fair

Panama has adopted absentee voting for citizens living abroad for the first time and much of the work involved --- sending out and receiving the ballots --- is being handled by Panama's post office, the Oficina de Correos y Telegrafos. The director of Correos Marta Amado --- the sister of General Noriega's mistress Vicky Amado and wife of Noriega's Dignity Battalions commander and now Minister of Public Works Benjamín Colamarco --- gave her assurances in La Estrella that everything will be handled honestly and transparently.

66,126 stricken from voter rolls

Some of them are dead or have emigrated, some of them have religious or political objections to voting, but in any case Panama has broken with its long established tradition of universal voter registration and removed 66,126 people from the voter rolls by the Electoral Tribunal because they didn't vote in last year's referendum or the national elections of 1999 or 2004. Housing Minister Balbina Herrera, a possible candidate for Panama City mayor in 2009, called the voter roll purge "worrisome" and objected to it in an interview with La Estrella on the grounds that Panama has never made voting obligatory.

Luciani out, in

The Supreme Court has vacated pretrial release restrictions and a prosecutor's request to the Social Security Fund (CSS) board of directors to remove Social Security director René Luciani for his alleged role in the poisoning deaths of hundreds of people who took cough syrups that were made at the CSS medicine lab using toxic diethylene glycol that was mislabeled as glycerin. Charges and restrictions against two prior CSS directors, Rolando Villalaz and Juan Jované, essentially charged as a public relations ploy to allow the Torrijos administration to blame predecessors for its scandal, were not lifted. The CSS board immediately restored Luciani to the director's post, although it didn't have to do so. The charges against Luciani, Villalaz and Jované are that they neglected medicine testing equipment and procedures at the lab, leading to the deaths. The months of suppression of information about the mysterious deaths by the CSS and the Health Ministry, clearly a contributing cause to dozens of fatalities, has so far not been addressed by prosecutors.

Hardly any DEG victims' families get paid

With great fanfare the Torrijos administration announced that a special compensation fund to pay $30,000 apiece the families of the officially recognized victims of poisoned cough syrup passed out by government health care facilities would be making disbursements at the beginning of July. The officially recognized death toll is up to 102 but the real number of victims is likely more than three times that number. In any case fewer than a dozen families have received compensation. The government says that proof of relationship and arguments among relatives about who is eligible to get what have slowed the compensation process. It seems that the government is also delaying payments in cases where victims' relatives sue the government or take an active role in the movement of those affected that's demanding the ouster of Health Minister Camilo Alleyne and Seguro Social director René Luciani. Those who were poisoned and still cling to life have had better luck getting compensation. About a dozen of those have received payments.

Result of a noisy city?

El Panama America reports that at the Arnulfo Arias Metropolitan Hospital Complex the audiology lab does an average of 1,333 tests per month. "In Panama we don't talk, we shout," the daily quoted Analida Pittí de Arango, the president of the Colegio Nacional de Fonoaudioogos. So might this have something to do with city noise --- all those traffic sounds, car and building alarms, boom cars, stores that advertise sales with huge speakers and so on?

Prosecutors throw out complaint against first uncle

A privately filed criminal charge against the president's uncle, Rodolfo Miguel Espino, for jumping over people who had previously applied to buy public land on Punta Chame and then obtaining the property for a fraction of one cent per square meter has been rejected by the Public Ministry. The prosecutors said that the documents attached to the complaint didn't contain sufficient proof to start a criminal investigation.

Torrijos popularity dips a bit

A Dichter & Neira poll published taken in mid-June and published in La Prensa found that President Torrijos still enjoyed widespread popularity but less than at any other time this year. Giving Torrijos a "good" or "very good" performance rating --- a neutral response was not an option --- were 56.9 percent of those surveyed. The president's popularity has steadily declined all year long. La Prensa also reported a poll result showing that a plurality of a little more than 38 percent of Panamanians thought that the Trade Promotion Agreement with the United States would help this country's economy but most people either believe that it will harm us or have no effect. Previous polls asked about whether people support or opposed such a treaty but if that question was asked this time, the PRD-aligned La Prensa chose not to publish the result.

ACP employee nabbed for selling info to loan company

It has been alleged in criminal charges filed by the Panama Canal Authority that a now former employee who had access to ACP payroll information, Cristóbal Miranda, sold information about canal workers' creditworthiness to the Financiera Centro and La Unica loan companies, receiving bribes in the form of checks made out to a relative in exchange.

Suspensions, expulsions and transfers for high school riots

June's high school riots have taken their toll. At Artes y Oficios, 160 students were suspended, mostly for a week, and 53 others were expelled. There were also a few suspensions and expulsions at the Instituto Nacional and Colegio Richard Neumann, and more than 100 at San Miguelito's Instituto Profesional y Tecnico Angel Rubio. Most of those expelled will be allowed to enroll at other public high schools. Panama's public school year is just short of its halfway point, and it's not at all clear that the disciplinary measures have really done anything to calm the situation.

Former DEA informant gets 15 months

David Viteri, a gangster who has embarrassed major political parties, mainstream media and the US Drug Enforcement Agency, is in the news again. No, he's not on the PRD-aligned MEDCOM channels threatening bloody revenge against his criminal organization's deadly foes, the El Pentagono gang from El Chorrillo. Actually, he remains a prisoner and will do so for at least 15 more months, as he was convicted for advocating crime in connection with his televised defense of his gang robbing other drug gangs of their cocaine. Viteri somehow prevailed on former President Mireya Moscoso and then Government and Justice Minister (now Supreme Court magistrate) Winston Spadafora to pardon him for a drug conviction during the previous administration, but that act was rescinded after a firestorm of criticism. During the current administration Viteri has been a protagonist in a bloody gang war and, until he was jailed, a frequently featured character on the MEDCOM networks' newscasts.

Tourist visa changes may be short-lived
City has second thoughts on getting rid of the Avenida Central Peatonal

Urban planning in Panama, such as it has been and may become

Emancipated high school girls expelled

The strange tale of Captain Sherman

Flowing in the streets of the capital
Panama News Briefs