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Police violence against protesters adds fuel to poisoned medicine scandal
Allegations against anti-corruption prosecutor cause high court split

US government plans to extradite Noriega to France, ex-dictator's lawyers will fight it
Panama News Briefs

Panama News Briefs

Detective slain in Tocumen

On July 21 Police First Sergeant Santiago Atencio, a 20-year veteran of the force assigned to DIIP detective squad in the Belen sub-station in Tocumen, died of gunshot wounds inflicted the previous night when responding to an attempted robbery call. Two men, aged 29 and 19, were held in connection with the shooting. Atencio was promoted posthumously to second lieutenant.

Ford says he'll run for president

"Yes I'm going to run for the presidency in the next election," former Vice President Guillermo Ford told RPC News. The consensus candidate to lead the new Union Patriotica party, Ford is probably the most popular figure on the right wing of the Panamanian political scene. Whether or not he's at the top of a ticket in 2009 will depend on a process of negotiations among opposition parties and possibly the holding of a multi-party presidential primary. Also aspiring to lead a unified opposition against the PRD in the next elections are Guillermo Endara, on whose slate Ford ran for VP against the alliance headed by President Torrijos in the 2004 election, and supermarket baron Ricardo Martinelli.

Bernal says he'll run for mayor

It ought to be a fun campaign. Political independent Miguel Antonio Bernal, who ran a close second to Juan Carlos Navarro in 1999, says he's running for mayor of Panama City again in 2009. The PRD is expected to run Housing Minister Balbina Herrera, who in addition to her terms in the legislature served as mayor of San Miguelito during the Noriega years. Bernal, a law professor, radio show host and community activist, was recently re-elected to the Colegio de Abogados (bar association) Honor Tribunal. There is little love lost between Bernal, who was beaten nearly to death by the dictatorship's cops in 1979 and twice exiled during the time that the military ran Panama, and the PRD, which was founded for the late General Omar Torrijos.

PRD gains, opposition parties lose members

The ruling Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) signed up 58,000 new members in a June membership drive, while at the same time the various opposition parties lost at total of about 20,000 members. The biggest hit was suffered by the Union Patriotica, the party formed by the merger of the Liberal Nacional and Solidaridad parties, which lost some 7,000 members. Meanwhile a Dichter & Neira poll showed that between early June and early July President Torrijos picked up most of the public approval points that he had lost the previous month and that all of the various named possible presidential candidates with the notable exception of Guillermo Endara lost public support. Dichter & Neira's methodology can lead to misinterpretation because it lumps a number of individuals from both government and opposition ranks, many of whom definitely won't be candidates, in one pool and asks people whom they would support. The leading candidate by that method is Cambio Democratico leader Ricardo Martinelli, who gets more than 27 percent support. However, barring something extraordinary the eventual PRD nominee will start out with the backing of a rock-solid third of the electorate but fall substantially short of a majority. The question then becomes whether anyone can put together a coalition of opposition votes to beat the PRD in 2009, and who such a person might be. Among likely aspirants to the PRD nomination, Panama City Mayor Juan Carlos Navarro leads former President Ernesto Pérez Balladares, with Vice President Samuel Lewis Navarro (the mayor's cousin) way behind.

Gómez steps down as SPI director during investigation

At first, President Torrijos was going to have Institutional Protection Service (SPI) director José Gómez head the official investigation into the beatings of protesters by the presidential guards he commands. However, as it became known to the public that Gómez was present at the incident, a committee that didn't include him --- but two-thirds of whose members are his subordinates --- got the job of investigating the incident. Then, as protests mounted, Gómez was suspended with pay pending the investigation's outcome.

Luciani calls for more understanding

Seguro Social director René Luciani, whom most Panamanians would like to see removed from office and may end up in jail depending on what happens with charges that have been filed against him in the poisoned medicines scandal, complains that the survivors of the diethylene glycol (DEG) poisonings and the community just don't understand. The problem is that those who are affected tend to have vision problems because the DEG attacks their retinas, and the victims are complaining about delays in seeing retinologists. The problem is that in the Health Ministry facilities like Santo Tomas Hospital there are no retinologists and in the Seguro Social system there are only a few. Luciani told El Panama America that the system is doing everything it can and that even in the best of times patients have to wait two or three months to see a retinologist, but the people whom his agency poisoned don't understand when they have to wait a few days to see one of these specialists.

Real says he'll sue PYCSA receiver

Minister of the Presidency Ubaldino Real appears ready to go on the offense to defend his right to visit Disney World. The government allowed the insolvent fly-by-night PYCSA consortium, which is under court-ordered receivership, to transfer its concession for the Panama-Colon Autopista project to the Brazilian company Odebrecht without involving or even informing the receiver, a practice generally condemned around that world as a fraud against the creditors. Kevin Harrington, the court-appointed receiver for PYCSA in a case brought by the Parque Natural Metropolitano (a creditor whose land PYCSA took without bothering to make the required payment), has been challenging that move and as part of his work has filed requests for documents under the Transparency Law. In violation of the Transparency Law Real has neither handed over the documents nor formally denied Harrington's request, which led the latter to urge the US State Department to cancel Real's US visa on the grounds that he's a corrupt public official. Real responded on the PRD-aligned TVN television network by saying that he's going to sue Harrington for this.

Lawyers with fake degrees can't have their licenses revoked?

The Torrijos administration is asserting a new legal theory to expand the scope of corruption with impunity. In the case of former judge Dulio Arrocha, who practiced and taught law and served in several judicial posts after having obtained a license to practice law with a fake law school degree, Administrative Prosecutor Oscar Ceville has opined that once the Supreme Court has certified somebody as a lawyer his or her license to practice law may not be revoked even if it was found that the license had been obtained by fraud.

High court OKs investigation of legislator

The Supreme Court has approved a criminal investigation of National Assembly deputy Olivares De Frías (PRD - Los Santos) for conflict of interest. A company in which he owns an interest, Constructora Jhissel, has several contracts with the government despite Article 158 of the Constitution, which prohibits legislators from doing business with the government, either directly or through front persons or companies. The legislator protests his innocence, pleading that his son runs the company now.

High court finds wiretaps of ex-prosecutor illegal

In a full-court decision the magistrates of the Supreme Court have held that it was illegal for Attorney General Ana Matilde Gómez to have ordered wiretaps of then prosecutor Arquímedes Sáez. Gómez did it without a prior court order, in an investigation of suspected corruption. The court, which has given rise to plenty of suspicions of its own corruption, held that wiretaps without a court order violate Article 29 of the Panamanian Constitution, which holds people's private communications generally inviolable.

Cop held in kidnapping

A National Police corporal who worked with the canine unit in David is among three persons held in the kidnapping of a secretary. The suspects allegedly tried to extort $25,000 from the woman's American employer.

Politician on trial for jail bait

Jaime Marín Maure, at the time the suplente to the representante from the Panama City corregimiento of Chilibre, may have thought that his privacy was assured when he visited the Los Cuatros Rosas pushbutton on the Madden Road near the Transistmica. However, an anonymous tip was phoned in to the police, who nabbed him as he was leaving in a taxi with a 17-year-old girl. As this issue of The Panama News Briefs was being written, Marín was on trial for corrupting the morals of a minor. Unlike legislators, Supreme Court magistrate and people at the top of the government's executive branch, elected city officials don't get immunity from criminal investigation or prosecution.

Police violence against protesters adds fuel to poisoned medicine scandal
Allegations against anti-corruption prosecutor cause high court split

US government plans to extradite Noriega to France, ex-dictator's lawyers will fight it
Panama News Briefs