Former Panamanian president Ricardo Martinelli assured on Friday that his political enemies intended to kill him once he departed for Nicaragua, in whose embassy in Panama’s capital he has been sheltered for more than a year to evade a money laundering conviction. “What they wanted to do was kill me,” Martinelli claimed, without specifying who, in a message on his social networks after the safe-conduct granted by the Panamanian government for him to travel to Managua expired at midnight on Thursday.
In a statement, the foreign ministry announced that the permit expired without the Nicaraguan government accepting to receive the former leader as announced last Monday, considering that the transfer was an “ambush,” a “trap.” “It was a vile trap they were trying to set for me; on one hand they were giving me a supposed exit and on the other hand they wanted to harm me by inventing a series of things,” added Martinelli, thanking Nicaragua and announcing that he will remain in asylum.
Martinelli, a 73-year-old tycoon who governed Panama from 2009 to 2014, took refuge in the embassy on February 7, 2024, shortly after the nearly 11-year sentence imposed on him in 2023 for using public funds to acquire a media group was confirmed. Nicaragua demanded that Panama clarify if it requested an Interpol red notice against Martinelli, after the Panamanian Police claimed on Sunday that this circular was in process and then stated that it did not apply because he was a political asylum seeker.
The foreign ministry said in its statement that it had sent Nicaragua “all the requested documentation” to confirm that there is no Interpol alert, but still there was no response. This “does not affect the recognition” of his “diplomatic asylum,” it added. Martinelli’s case sparked a bilateral crisis, as the Nicaraguan government took the opportunity to reproach Panama for making “offensive” declarations against it.
Last December, when he complained about the political activism that Martinelli has engaged in from his refuge, President José Raúl Mulino stated that this situation violated asylum rules but Nicaragua “has neither God nor Law.” Martinelli, who claims to be a victim of political persecution, is also charged, in a trial scheduled for November, in the bribery scandal involving Brazilian construction company Odebrecht.
