The Martinellis are probably
not celebrating this weekend

by Eric Jackson

A Guatemalan judge set the stage when he denied yet another motion by former president Ricardo Martinelli’s sons, Ricardo Alberto Martinelli Linares and Luis Enrique Martinelli Linares. In this instance it was an argument that a Panamanian prosecutor’s prior request to the United States to extradite the brothers to Panama was made by the wrong prosecutor in Panama and started the whole case in the USA,. for which US authorities want the brothers sent from Guatemala to stand trial in Brooklyn.

Here in Panama at the same time, a judge in one of the father’s cases warned the defense to stop making frivolous motions just to delay the matter.

How desperate is it for the younger Martinellis? Guatemala has never turned down a US extradition request.

On September 4 the US Justice Department formally submitted its brief supporting the charges for the Guatemalan courts to consider. These are about how through a series of purchases, money transfers between shell corporations and transfers among numbered bank accounts the younger Martinellis laundered kickback money from the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht for overpriced public works contracts awarded by their father’s administration.

The case where the elder Martinelli was warned about improper motions is about those kickbacks as well.

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