Ricardo Martinelli, who served as the 36th President of the Republic of Panama from 2009 to 2014, has been found not guilty by a Panamanian court on charges of corruption as well as the illegal wiretapping of phones. The prosecutors had accused Ricardo Martinelli of being deeply connected to a scheme that had used public funds for recording private conversations and then using those recordings to browbeat the rival politicians during his 6-year term in office.
Ricardo Martinelli was deported from the United States of America on June 11, 2018, to Panama, particularly to face trial on the severe charges of corruption and illegally wiretapping of phones. However, in spite of all the evidence that was presented to the court, Ricardo Martinelli was found not guilty, and as a result, he celebrated with his supporters outside the court as soon as the hearing got over.
The 67-year-old controversial figure, who had invariably denied being related to any law-breaking activity, recently said to many mainstream media outlets that his arch-enemies formulated this entire trial. The prosecutors had alleged that he intentionally spied on about 150 people which included several journalists, politicians and trade union leaders.
In 2015, as per Panama’s Supreme Court order, a warrant was issued by the legal authorities for the arrest of Ricardo Martinelli and hardly days before a rigorous investigation was fired off into the corruption accusations against the former Panama President, Ricardo Martinelli fled away to the US. In 2017, after Panama made an extradition request for Ricardo Martinelli, he was arrested and detained in federal custody in the United States near his house situated in Coral Gables.
Ricardo Martinelli had attempted numerous times to get political asylum since, according to him, the allegations that were made against him were part of a political feud. Ricardo Martinelli’s team of legal experts and attorneys made a bunch of appeals against the extradition of their client. However, nothing had worked because the USA accepted the extradition request in June of 2018. After Ricardo Martinelli was extradited to Panama City, he was kept in the same jail where General Manuel Noreiga, the former military leader of Panama had spent much of his adult life.
Note: This article was originally published here.