news special

Zulay Rodríguez is in big trouble. A former alternate judge who used to be, at least functionally, the most important clerk for the Supreme Court, for many years she was the conduit through which people bribed high court magistrates. But then she let a couple of high-level drug suspects walk, complaints were lodged --- one wonders whether directly or indirectly by the US Drug Enforcement Administration, as is rumored to be the case --- and she was fired and charged with corruption. She managed to get out on bail, but the case has not gone away.

Zulay, however, was a prudent crook to the extent that there are such. She kept a private archive, just in case.

Having carefully not had a "terrible accident" or eaten the Franklin Brewster Special for lunch, Ms. Rodríguez remained in the picture to play her card: she's singing the "tell all" song, or at least performing some numbers sure to embarrass those who threw her overboard. Her tale was of course brushed off as fiction, at which point she started to plunk down some documents, including some very embarrassing emails.

To wit:

• Although everybody who follows Panamanian politics knows that former Attorney General Ana Matilde Gómez was removed by the Supreme Court and replaced with a guy who turned out to be tainted by the drug cartels, in a series of moves orchestrated by President Martinelli . But what Panamanians are now learning is that the replacement of the attorney general by a crook who was forced to resign less than one year later was very elaborately choreographed by a group of lawyers led by former national ombudsman Ítalo Antinori and including Zulay Rodríguez and one José Almengor. The group adopted the name Persecuted by Ana Matilde Gómez, and an acronym PAMAGO. Rodríguez served more or less at the secretary. Almengor, who has a grudge against Gómez because she suspended him for letting a money laundering suspect leave the country, was Martinelli's national security advisor when the group started and a Supreme Court magistrate when it accomplished its purpose. At the end of the process, Antinori ordered the destruction of all the emails and other documents, but Zulay kept copies. Almengor's participation while a magistrate in meetings to affect the outcome of a case before the high court is a violation of every sort of judicial ethics standard --- except in Panama, such standards are never enforced.

• Zulay told of a face-to-face meeting at the Supreme Court involving American/Belizean swindler Lidio Albino Rancharan --- who is wanted in the United States for a string of frauds involving millions of dollars --- and Supreme Court magistrates José Almengor and Alejandro Moncada Luna. Those are Martinelli's two high court appointees to date. Rancharan may not have paid the lawyer for his outfit, Grupo Bannorth, a Rafael Araúz: he has also gone public with the story of that meeting. Rancharan was also a former client of Zulay Rodríguez, and later, Ítalo Antinori.

All of this is terribly embarrassing to the judicial system, and because Martinelli has been so crude about manipulating it, the president as well. Top lawyers and a coalition of some 80 civic groups have filed various criminal complaints against Almengor, and Antinori has been forced to step down as the coordinator of the president's constitutional change initiative.

Attorney General José Ayú Prado has forwarded the matter to the National Assembly, whose Credentials Committtee is likely to dismiss it rather than to initiate impeachment proceedings against Almengor. However, there is political fallout and the scandal is likely to strengthen the hands of Panama's opposition forces and worsen already deteriorated US-Panamanian relations.

The Martinelli regime's damage control moves indicate how desperate the situtation is for them. Almengor has filed a criminal complaint against Rodríguez, alleging that she stole private emails and Supreme Court records. Anonymous photos of Almengor and Rodríguez together when they were law students have been circulated on the Internet, with Ricardo Martinelli going on television and suggesting that the whole think is a lovers' quarrel. That latter ploy is taking on a life of its own in the form of allegations from several directions that Martinelli's a sexist.