A total of 58 defendants today face a preliminary hearing for the alleged commission of the crimes of embezzlement and money laundering through the Blue Apple company.
This is one of the most important cases brought forward by the Public Ministry in recent years, in which former officials, businessmen and lawyers are linked in the creation of a corruption plot to obtain infrastructure contracts by paying bribes.
The Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office concluded that in this case between 5% and 10% of the value of the contracts was paid and that this money was channeled through Blue Apple.
Preliminary Hearing in Blue Apple Case Must Start Today
Today, the Third Criminal Liquidator Court will hold a preliminary hearing of 58 people for the alleged commission of the crime of money laundering and embezzlement through the payment of bribes channeled through the Blue Apple company to obtain public works contracts.
This hearing, which will be in charge of Judge Baloisa Marquínez, should have been held on November 11, 2020, but was suspended because some lawyers had not been notified.
Until Friday, no lawyer had filed an appeal or request to postpone the date, so Marquínez should start the session at 9:00 am It has not yet been reported in which of the Gil Ponce Palace rooms the hearing will be.
The judge must decide whether the prosecution provided enough elements to call the accused to the stand and thus set a date for the merits trial. For the Sixth Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, which carried out the investigation, it was possible to determine a corruption scheme that involved at least nine state contractors, lawyers, bankers and former ministers, and who, according to the investigations, used the banking system to launder money from of bribes.
In this case the prosecution reached four effective collaboration agreements. Among these those signed with Juan Alexis Rodríguez, from Constructora Rodsa; with Carlos Cerdas, from Meco; and with Julián París and Jorge Espino, from Conceptos y Espacios. After effective collaboration agreements, the entrepreneurs returned $ 24 million 903 thousand 738.
The player sent international assistance to Guatemala to notify Luis Enrique and Ricardo Alberto Martinelli Linares of the hearing, sons of former President Ricardo Martinelli, both detained in that country for an extradition request from the United States.
Also accused are the former ministers of Public Works Federico Suárez, Jaime Ford and the director of Contract Administration of the MOP, Jorge Churro Ruiz. who supposedly was in charge of requesting a disbursement of 5% of the gross value of the contracts for “political aid”,
There is also Adolfo De Obarrio, who on April 8 was arrested in Italy following an Interpol request issued by Panama. But De Obarrio was released because the Legislative Organ of Panama did not ratify the extradition treaty signed with Italy in 2013.
The tax hearing was sent to the court on September 10, 2019 for evaluation.
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