(CN) - Former Panamanian President Ricardo Alberto Martinelli Berrocal, sentenced to 10 years in prison for money laundering, can be prosecuted for additional charges in Panama where he was extradited from the U.S., an 11th Circuit panel ruled Wednesday.
The panel upheld the dismissal of Martinelli's request to void letters from a U.S. government official asserting that Panama was free to prosecute additional charges stemming from before his extradition.
In its opinion, the court concluded Martinelli failed to establish standing because his prosecutions in Panama were not fairly traceable to the letters from the Department of State's legal adviser. It also held that a ruling in his favor would not grant him relief from his prosecutions in Panama.
In his complaint, Martinelli argued that the money laundering prosecutions violated the extradition treaty's rule of specialty provision, because Panama did not include the crimes in its extradition request.
In Martinelli's view, letters from the adviser, Thomas Heinemann, gave the Panamanian officials the "go-ahead" to prosecute him.
Heinemann had told Panama officials the "rule of specialty" no longer applied in Martinelli's case because he was free to travel outside Panama since September 2019 after a Panamanian court declared him not guilty of espionage and corruption during his administration.
Martinelli argued that he satisfied the traceability requirement because the Panamanian officials' decision to prosecute him flowed from Heinemann's letters.
"We disagree," U.S. Circuit Judge Jill Pryor, a Barack Obama appointee, wrote in the unanimous opinion.
"The decision to prosecute Martinelli was made by officials of an independent sovereign. Martinelli failed to allege that the Panamanian officials acted in concert with Heinemann and the State Department in prosecuting him or were in any way obligated to prosecute him after their receipt of Heinemann's letters," Pryor added.
Joined by Donald Trump appointees, U.S. Circuit judges Elizabeth Branch and Britt Grant, the panel found that the United States Embassy consented to Martinelli's money laundering prosecutions in Panama in a letter sent to Panama's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The State Department adopted Heinemann's Oct. 29, 2020, letter stating that "Panama is free to further prosecute Mr. Martinelli without obtaining a waiver of the Rule of Specialty from the United States" and submitted it to Panamanian authorities as the official position of the United States.
Heinemann's letter also was not the result of a concerted government effort to coerce the Panamanian officials or predetermine their conduct, the circuit judges found. Instead, Heinemann sent the letter only because the attorney general of Panama requested it.
Martinelli's redressability arguments fail for similar reasons, wrote Pryor, because the U.S. government has no enforcement authority over the Panamanian prosecutions.
"And even if the defendants were ordered to disclaim Heinemann's letters opining that the Rule of Specialty was inapplicable to Martinelli, the Panamanian officials would remain 'free and clear of any judgment and thus free to engage in the conduct that' injures Martinelli," Pryor wrote.
Martinelli filed his complaint in 2022 in the Southern District of Florida. A year later, a criminal court in Panama sentenced him to more than 10 years in prison for money laundering in a case dating back to 2017.
The case concerned the 2010 purchase of a Panamanian national media company. Prosecutors claim that Martinelli gave lucrative government contracts to businesses that later transferred money to the company New Business - a front Martinelli used to buy the company.
The Panamanian Supreme Court upheld Martinelli's conviction last year, making him ineligible to run, as he'd planned, in the 2024 presidential election. Days later, Martinelli received political asylum from Nicaragua, where he has been avoiding arrest by sheltering in the country's embassy.
Under the terms of an extradition treaty, Martinelli returned to Panama in 2018 from Coral Gables, Florida, where he'd fled to escape an arrest warrant issued by Panama's highest court in 2015. He was indicted on charges related to an illegal wiretapping scheme conducted while he served as president from 2009 to 2014.
According to Panama's government, shortly after taking office, Martinelli created a special services unit that used two multimillion-dollar surveillance systems to illegally intercept and record cell phone calls and digital communications of at least 150 people Martinelli identified as "targets." Those included his political allies and opponents and their family members, his business rivals, Panamanian judges, journalists, union activists and U.S. diplomats.
Martinelli, a populist who oversaw a period of massive infrastructure projects in the country, including construction of the capital's first metro line, is the first former president convicted of a crime in Panama.
Source: Courthouse News Service
