This content was published on July 15, 2022 – 20:02. July 15, 2022 – 8:02 p.m
Panama City, 15 July (EFE).- The hearing in the Odebrecht case in Panama, the biggest corruption plot in the country’s history involving 83 accused including two former presidents, can be broadcast in real time via communications, reported this Friday the Judicial Branch (OJ).
That hearing is expected to begin next Monday, as determined by the Third Criminal Cases Liquidator Court of the First Judicial Circuit of Panama, with an alternate date of September 12-30.
“The judiciary will offer an audio and video signal to the various social communication media so that they can broadcast in real time the preliminary hearing of the so-called ‘Odebrecht’ case,” read an official statement.
In addition, the journalists covering the hearing “must be accredited by the Directorate-General for Communications so that they can collect the information that emerges during the hearing through a closed-loop system activated for that purpose in the Space Helper.” he added.
This announcement by the judiciary comes a day after the Panamanian journalists’ unions requested that the hearing in the Odebrecht case be made public.
“The details of this case are of public interest and concern the entire population, as it is the most relevant case of high-profile corruption, which is not only historical but has also had transcendental implications for local and international spheres,” argued the Panamanian journalists’ unions It is a statement.
The judiciary said this Friday that in the Odebrecht case, “83 citizens are charged with the alleged commission of the crimes of money laundering and corruption by state officials,” a trial involving “54 private technical defense attorneys and 9 public defense attorneys, in addition to prosecutors and Plaintiffs’ Attorneys”.
Among the accused are former Presidents Ricardo Martinelli (2009-2014) – and two of his sons, who have already been convicted in the US for this conspiracy – and Juan Carlos Varela (2014-2019).
Ricardo Alberto and Luis Enrique Martinelli Linares confessed to taking bribes from Odebrecht as millionaires and were sentenced by a US court on May 20 to three years in prison and two years probation and a fine of $250,000 each, a figure , which adds to another fine of more than $18 million.
The Martinelli brothers pleaded guilty “to complicity in bribe payments by and at the direction of Odebrecht to a then senior official of the Panamanian government who was a close relative of the defendants” totaling $28 million. according to official US data.
The newspaper La Prensa published this Friday that the lack of notification of the accused abroad, the entry of new lawyers into the process and an appeal by former President Martinelli could delay the start of the hearing.
Odebrecht has been implicated in the continent’s biggest corruption scandal, admitting to US authorities that he paid millions of dollars in bribes in a dozen countries, almost all in Latin America, for which he was fined $2.6 billion.
In Panama, the company and prosecutors signed an agreement in July 2017 in which the company agreed to pay the state a $220 million fine over 12 years, despite failing to honor the payouts. EFE
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