Interpol Red Alert Prolongs Drama Over ex-Panama President
After being declared guilty of corruption by the Panamanian courts, former President Ricardo Martinelli hoped for a pardon from current Head of State Jose Raul Mulino. However, he had to settle for a safe-passage letter so he could flee to Nicaragua.
By Sol Lauria and Wilfredo Miranda (Divergentes)
HAVANA TIMES – What Panamanian ex-president Ricardo Martinelli really wanted was a pardon. He had been sentenced to ten years in prison for embezzling and laundering money from government contractors to purchase a media conglomerate. When the longed-for pardon didn’t arrive, he had to settle for a safe-conduct letter extended on March 27 by Panama’s current president, Jose Raul Mulino, to travel to Nicaragua for “humanitarian reasons.” Martinelli accepted reluctantly, but not without turning the decision to allow him to flee into one more chapter in the long saga that “El Loco” Martinelli shares daily on his social networks.
After grumbling about the safe-conduct letter, then throwing himself a series farewell parties at Panama City’s Nicaraguan Embassy, where he took refuge over a year ago, Martinelli prepared to depart to Managua. On March 31, his final date for leaving, all was ready – from his private airplane to his inseparable little dog Bruno, dressed in a canine tuxedo. He announced in a tweet that the refugee dog was “ready to leave for the beautiful sister Republic of Nicaragua.”
But the journey was not to be. A red alert from Interpol frustrated their carefully laid plans.
While the Panamanian and Nicaraguan governments moved ahead with the travel arrangements, Panama’s National Police received a request for an Interpol alert against ex-President Martinelli. It had been requested by Judge Baloisa Marquinez, who had presided over the trial where he was found guilty and sentenced to ten years in prison. Judge Marquinez was also in charge of the Odebrecht case, in which Martinelli was accused of bribery and money laundering. That trial is scheduled for November.
Upon learning of the Interpol alert, the Ortega-Murillo regime in Nicaragua asked the Panamanian Foreign Ministry to clarify the situation, because the trip was officially for purposes of “asylum”. The Foreign Ministry then stated: “no red alert can impede the ex-President’s trip.” A source close to Martinelli consulted by Concolon and Divergentes revealed that “Martinelli was furious and even cried about the impossibility of traveling.” The source added: “He wants to leave in order to return with a pardon. He also tried to communicate with Ortega but never succeeded, because now the one in charge is Rosario.”
What Martinelli has always wanted was a pardon from his friend and former subordinate, Jose Mulino, now president of Panama, and the freedom to continue influencing Panamanian politics. He expected this absolution as a reward for having helped catapult his old buddy into the high office. Instead, after a year of refusal, leaving Martinelli confined in the Nicaraguan embassy, Mulino finally granted him safe passage, a measure which didn’t please anyone. Martinelli sees it as a betrayal, while politicians and leaders of civil society view it as a pact of impunity.
The drama plays out in chapters on social media
On Thursday March 27, the Panamanian government finally recognized the asylum offer that Nicaragua had extended to Martinelli a year earlier, even though his case doesn’t fit the normal asylum conditions: danger or persecution for political reasons. Their lawyers, advisors and reporters immediately began to arrive at the Nicaraguan Embassy, a small tile-roofed house in the heart of Panama’s capital where Martinelli claimed he could no longer endure staying. He couldn’t stand Ortega-Murillo’s ambassador, Consuelo Sandoval, a dogmatic woman loyal to the regime, who each morning regaled him with propaganda about revolutions and things that – to someone like Martinelli whose sole value was to accumulate money – belonged to “outdated Communists.”
When in February, Jessica Padilla Leiva took over for Sandoval, Martinelli breathed a sigh of relief, calling her “an affectionate young woman.” But it wasn’t enough. The extended confinement in that little two-by two house, so insignificant beside any of his mansions, exasperated him. Mulino knew it, but didn’t want to move his pieces in the justice department, nor have Martinelli visiting the presidency every day. Martinelli, in turn, saw the safe conduct offer as a betrayal, but had no choice but to accept it.
“Not even Mr. Martinelli himself has fully assimilated the impact of this surprising decision [to offer him Safe Passage]. We didn’t expect this,” one of his lawyers told the reporters in the doorway to the Embassy. Martinelli himself declared in a video he posted on Instagram: “They’ve subjected me to a political trial, I’m totally innocent, a victim of political persecution.” He alleged that the announcement of his friend, Panama’s foreign minister Javier Martinez-Acha, took him by surprise. Nonetheless, ten days before he had renewed his diplomatic passport.
In the end, Martinelli announced that he was going to Nicaragua. Barbeques, gatherings, farewell parties in the Embassy headquarters followed. And preparations.
In the end, Panama’s National Police rejected the request for a red alert against Martinelli. “It doesn’t fit the parameters established by Interpol since 2014, and reaffirmed in 2017, that prohibit the emission of red alerts against citizens who are refugees or seeking political asylum,” they published in a statement.
Still, Rosario Murillo hung on to that Interpol rope and announced that they wouldn’t receive Martinelli in that condition, ignoring the fact that Nicaragua has already granted asylum to Salvador Sanchez Ceren, ex-President of El Salvador, who also has an outstanding warrant from Interpol. Meanwhile, Murillo seized the occasion to complain about the actions of Panama’s president in “maintaining a hostile attitude and blocking Nicaragua’s participation as General Secretary of the Central American Integration System (SICA).”
The statement from Managua’s Foreign Ministry was read out at noon on March 31 by Murillo herself, during her habitual midday monologues in her role as spokesperson for the Sandinista regime.
At present, Martinelli’s trip is up in the air.
Murillo ties the Martinelli drama to the Nicaraguan saga with SICA
“We therefore denounce the absurd positions and attitudes of the Panamanian authorities, positions that should be amended immediately to place themselves on the side of political and humanist correctness. The Government of Panama, in addition, has been characterized, since President Jose Raul Mulino took office, for ignoring, defaming, and acting against the Government of Nicaragua, in undeserved offensive statements, and also blocking, in complicity with other countries, the right of Nicaragua to the seat that legitimately corresponds to us in the General Secretariat of SICA”, added the statement, in the inimitable florid style of the all-powerful Murillo.
This new chapter on the Interpol red alert has added a new plot twist to the Martinelli drama. It also raises the following questions: Is Murillo trying to force Mulino to vote for the Nicaraguan candidate to head the SICA? Is she hoping for some other advantage, from someone else in Panama? Or is it a scheme in which Martinelli ends by achieving the freedom he wants in his country? One of the ex-president’s lawyers gave a hint of what could be behind all this when he asked the Supreme Court last Friday to adjust Martinelli’s legal situation. “No Panamanian can be found guilty without being given the right to cross-question the witnesses,” said Carlos Carillo.
As of Monday, March 31, the lawyers, politicians and friends continue arriving at the Embassy. After a visit, former deputy Zulay Rodriguez had already noted: “He doesn’t want to leave, they’re forcing him to go.”
Following Murillo’s message, Panama’s Foreign Ministry advised Nicaragua that the Interpol alert had been rejected, and that the Courts are in agreement with the letter of Safe Conduct. In the afternoon, Mulino’s government hastily issued a statement extending the validity of the Safe Conduct letter for an additional 72 hours, until the close of Thursday, April 3rd. The trip and the drama of Martinelli remains on a new cliffhanger. The story will continue.