Martinelli fundraiser and now urban waste
authority director Enrique Ho
Fernández. It turns out that Ho put $259,988 in an Andorran bank
account belonging to CPA Ernesto Chong Coronado (and Chong's father),
the younger Chong being the architect of Colombian racketeer David
Murcia Guzmán's network of Panamanian shell companies. The transaction
caused Andorran authorities to conduct a cursory money laundering
investigation. It then turned out that Ho had received $380,000 from
the Chongs and forwarded this to a Cambio Democratico party account in
two checks, one of which bounced. Martinelli returned both the amount
of the check that didn't bounce and the one with insufficient funds ---
on November 24, 2008, five days after Chong's main client, Mr. Murcia
Guzmán, was arrested. Ho says that the transaction was a loan from
Chong Coronado's father, which he repaid. Photo by the Asamblea Nacional
Martinelli's WikiLeaks
control strategy in shards, presidential gangland ties scandal explodes
with new revelations, a newspaper war
WikiLeaks
deal, court corruption cover-up fail to protect Martinelli
by Eric Jackson
Ricardo Martinelli controls the
courts, the prosecutors, the police, the legislature and some of the
news media. He's blackmailing opposition politicians and businesspeople
who financed his political opponents to join his political party. He's
working on "constitutional reforms" to extend and prolong his control.
However, he's not the least bit subtle about anything he does and those
of his adversaries who are not and have not been on the government
gravy train have over the past year discovered that the president is a
blunderer who can be and has been beaten.
Last December Martinelli scored a coup when his supporters bought
EPASA, the company that publishes three dailies -- El Panama America,
La Critica and Dia a Dia, the first an established broadsheet that once
had a decent reputation and the second a gory, sensationalist
necro-porn tabloid that happens to be Panamanian journalism's
circulation leader. In March it was announced that El Panama America
had reached an exclusive agreement with WikiLeaks to publish all of the
cables coming out of the US Embassy in Panama, without censorship
except in rare instances where the publication of a name could endanger
a life. That deal put all of the Panama WikiLeaks cables in
Martinelli's hands, allowing his team to concoct an information control
strategy with respect to these data.
At the time, journalists with the small alternative media warned
WikiLeaks that it had blundered. Dutch reporter Okke Ornstein and this
reporter were among those who explained that Julian Assange's
organization had essentially given control of the information to
Ricardo Martinelli. However, the exclusive deal with El Panama America
lasted through April, when Martinelli was being battered at home by a
wide-ranging court and prosecution scandal but was triumphant abroad by
his audience with Barack Obama and getting Washington to move toward
ratifying the NAFTA-style US-Panama free trade agreement.
In the weeks leading up to Martinelli's Washington visit, El Panama
American mainly published embassy cables talking about the Torrijos
administration's corruption and deleted the most embarrassing cable up
to that time, about money laundering at Tocumen Airport and a most
unflattering comment on Tourism minister Salomon Shamah's reputation,
from its database.
In those weeks Supreme Court magistrate and former chief anti-drug
prosecutor José Abel Almengor, having already received unflattering
mention in WikiLeaks cables published before the deal with El Panama
America, was fighting for his political life. At the same time, teams
of investigators from La Estrella, La Prensa and other media were hot
on Almengor's trail and Martinelli knew that there was even more
damaging WikiLeaks material about Almengor that would sooner or later
come out. So the legislators threw out the first of six complaints
against Almengor, Martinelli's prosecutors said it would be "illegal"
for them to investigate the corrupt magistrate and everything was under
control --- briefly. But Martinelli's trip to Washington was
accompanied by the first US mainstream media recognition of the
unflattering things that the leaked US Embassy cables had to say about
Martinelli, and the president's entourage did not include the tourism
minister.
There have been lots of "no comments" about whether the US government
has taken away Shamah's visa. Given things already published about him
and more damning cables that such US media as The New York Times has
and Martinelli would know that it has, a reasonable alternative
explanation might be that the Panamanian president didn't care to have
Shamah confronted with embarrassing questions during his Washington
visit, so left him out of the delegation. It might also be that tourism
was not considered germane to the main business of the trip. However,
before Obama extended his invitation to meet Martinelli at the White
House, Martinelli was planning to be in Washington for a gathering of
Jewish leaders throughout the Americas at the US Holocaust Museum and
Shamah is one of the two Jewish ministers in Martinelli's cabinet.
On the day that Martinelli met with Obama, his "anonymous" smear video
organization leveled a blast at La Prensa columnist and reporter, and
environmentalist attorney, Lina Vega. Did they know that she was one of
the reporters hot on the president's trail? Did they know that their
control over WikiLeaks was about to end? These days most journalists
who are not in Martinelli's entourage presume that the president's
voyeurs are watching and listening, and if that's true the president
and his men would have known.
Martinelli's trip to the United States was followed by the long May Day
weekend, and after that came the announcement that Assange had taken
away the president's allies' exclusive control of the Panama WikiLeaks.
At the end of the week, on May 7, allthreebroadsheetdailies led with stories about Almengor, the Shamah brothers, Murcia Guzmán, Martinelli and
high-ranking people in both Martinelli's and Murcia's entourages. The devastating centerpiece was a US
Embassy cable, reproduced below the following video, that among other
things had the DEA reporting that Murcia Guzmán flew on Martinelli's
private plane.
The smoking gun is there. Martinelli's in bed with Colombian racketeers.
The Martinelli
organization's pseudonymous mudslinging at Lina Vega.
They didn't expect a woman to hit them back as hard as she did.
The WikiLeaks cable that, together with La
Estrella and La Prensa investigations, blew the lid off of the
Martinelli gangland ties story
Classified
By: Ambassador Barbara J. Stephenson for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d)
-------
Summary
-------
¶1. (S//NF) Failed PRD candidate for
president Balbina Herrera publicly
alleged September 24 that Secretary of State for Security Jose
Almengor had withheld evidence during the past presidential campaign
that incriminated President Martinelli in the David Murcia scandal.
That scandal contributed to the defeat of Herrera, who was accused of
having accepted campaign contributions from Murcia. Herrera claims
that Almengor, who was the lead drug prosecutor at the time, obtained
a cassette that indicated Martinelli had received an $800,000
campaign contribution from Murcia. Almengor is now strongly rumored
to be one of Martinelli's picks for two slots on the Supreme Court
(ref A). Herrera claimed Almengor had accepted a pay off for his
silence by working for the government. Almengor denied the charges,
but Post had received information during the campaign from
Martinelli's campaign manager that indicated there might well have
been a connection. DEA also reports that Almengor came across
information that implicated Martinelli during his investigation of
Murcia, and that he suppressed the information. End Summary.
--------------------
Balbina
Strikes Back
--------------------
¶2. (U) According to Panama City daily
La Estrella, on September 24
former Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) presidential candidate
Balbina Herrera publicly alleged that Secretary of State for Security
in the Ministry of the Presidency, and former lead drug prosecutor,
Jose Almengor had covered up evidence that President Ricardo
Martinelli received an $800,000 campaign contribution from David
Murcia, convicted in Colombia and indicted in the U.S. for fraud and
money laundering. Murcia had publicly stated that Herrera and PRD
candidate for mayor of Panama City, Roberto Velazquez, had each
received $3 million campaign contributions from him. This accusation
damaged each of their campaigns, and they both lost. Herrera now
claims that Almengor, who was one of the prosecutors working on the
Murcia investigation in Panama, obtained a cassette that showed that
Murcia had donated $800,000 to Martinelli's campaign. Almengor
resigned as a prosecutor during the investigation after the Attorney
General criticized him for allowing one of the suspects to leave the
country. Almengor began working for the Martinelli government almost
immediately after the election, and it has been strongly rumored that
Martinelli intends to appoint him to the Supreme Court. Referring to
these rumors, Herrera said, "How well they have paid you, Jose
Abel Almengor!"
-------------------
Half
Hearted Denial
-------------------
¶3. (U) La Estrella quotes Almengor
giving a very specific denial: "In
the investigation that took place, no request was made to the Penal
Chamber of the Supreme Court for any video or filming. There are no
(recordings) in the case file, nor is there any evidence that there
ever was." He noted he did not lead the campaign finance portion
of the investigation, but rather the money laundering portion. He
said he had not decided if he would submit his name for consideration
for nomination to the Court.
------------
Twisted
Tale
------------
¶4. (S//NF) Right before the scandal
over Murcia's alleged financing of
the two PRD candidates broke in March, Martinelli's campaign manager,
and now Minister of the Presidency, Jimmy Papadimitriu told Emboff
that news was about to break that Martinelli had received a large
campaign contribution from the Brazilian construction firm Odebrecht
that was carrying out several very large public infrastructure
projects in Panama (the Martinelli government drew criticism recently
when it awarded Odebrecht a no-bid contract for a $60 million road
construction project.) Papadimitriu claimed that Odebrecht money had
been accidentally "commingled" by Martinelli's lawyer, Alma
Cortez, in accounts belonging to Murcia. Cortez was Murcia's lawyer
in Panama.
-------------------
Further
Connections
-------------------
¶5. (S//NF) DEA reports that
Panamanian Director of Tourism, and one of
the main strategists of Martinelli's campaign, Salo Shamah has a
brother, Alberto Shamah, who worked as Murcia's pilot. According to a
DEA source, Alberto Shamah once flew Martinelli's plane with Murcia
on board. After the Murcia scandal broke, all records of that flight
disappeared. The source further alleged that Almengor knew about the
flight while he was investigating Murcia, but suppressed the
information. Almengor himself told DEAFSN that Salo Shamah had
originally put him in touch with Papadimitriu, from which began his
relationship with the Martinelli government.
-------
Comment
-------
¶6. (S//NF) There is a lot of noise
about the
Martinelli-Murcia-Almengor
connection, which is putting the story Papadimitriu told us last
March in a fresh light. It now seems likely that there was a
Martinelli-Murcia connection. Almengor's inexplicable rise to
prominence is causing the story to rise from the dead, and
threatening Martinelli's image as an anti-corruption crusader. This
potential damage to his moral authority is the most significant
aspect to the story. There is also, however, a possibility that
Martinelli could be blackmailed by others who have information about
this connection, which may be at least part of what is fueling his
desire for political intelligence (ref B).
STEPHENSON
Appointing
a servile and corrupt judge: left to right, Minister of the Presidency
Jimmy Papadimitriu, President Martinelli and former magistrate José
Abel Almengor. Almengor served less than 16 months of his 10-year term
before being forced out in a court corruption scandal. Photo by the Presidencia
