PANAMA
Moving Day
Former Panama President Ricardo Martinelli left a prison in Miami for another one in the Central American nation, where he will stand trial on charges that he used public money to spy on more than 150 political rivals during his 2009-2014 term.
Martinelli has been in US custody since June 2017, when Panama requested his extradition, Al-Jazeera reported. He has denied any wrongdoing and claims that the charges are politically motivated.
The supermarket tycoon presided over an infrastructure boom and Latin America’s fastest economic growth in recent years. But he is also under investigation in about 20 other cases of corruption. Under the terms of his extradition, he theoretically cannot be tried in those cases.
He fled to the US in 2015, shortly after Panama’s Supreme Court launched a corruption probe into his activities. Upon arrival in Panama, Martinelli was taken to a “kind of chalet” in the El Renacer prison, which once held ex-dictator Manuel Antonio Noriega, reported Panama Today.
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