Judge José Antonio Dias Toffoli, member of the Supreme Court of Brazil, extended the effects of the decision in favor of former president Ricardo Martinelli to declare the uselessness of the evidence obtained from the Drousys and My Web Day systems – known as box 2 – as well as such as the testimonies of executives of the construction company, all used within the framework of the collaboration agreement of the construction company Odebrecht carried out in Brazil. In addition, he has ordered his decision to be sent to the Panamanian justice system, which has scheduled the trial for next November 12 and as an alternative date for January 20, 2025.

The former president, accused of the crime of money laundering in the case in question, made the request to Toffoli on March 14 to benefit from the same fate that befell other accused, so that the prosecution would be prevented from using the statements. of the executives of the Brazilian company and the information kept by the systems that contain the amounts, nicknames and dates on which the bribes were paid. The magistrate responded to the request on April 1.

This medium learned that in addition to the former president, there is a line of defendants who hope to follow in the footsteps of Ricardo Francolini and Juan Antonio Niño, both accused of money laundering and who in January achieved a favorable ruling from the Supreme Court of Brazil declaring the evidence useless. collected from the systems and the testimonies against them. A source who has been offered legal services for this purpose told La Estrella de Panamá that for months the lawyers have been in contact with the defendants in the case to process their cases. “They charge between $500,000 and one million dollars to file the request before Judge José Antonio Dias Toffoli,” a member of said court, the source indicated.

Martinelli managed to get Toffoli to declare in his lawsuit the lack of reliability of the evidence obtained from the collaboration agreement decided by the Brazilian Court. In this understanding, I have requested that the statements of André Rabello, Odebrecht representative in Panama, who knew the faces and amounts that politicians received in exchange for carrying out projects or expediting their development, not be taken into account either. From Olivio Rodrigues, the company’s external services man (2006-2016) who, through the companies Constructora Internacional del Sur and Select Engineering, executed the orders of the Department of Structured Operations (DOE) to benefit officials and officials with millions. politicians from Latin America, including Panama. His lawyers also asked the Court to veto the statements of Luiz Antonio Mameri, a business leader for Latin America and Angola linked to the authorization of payments and bribes to officials through the DOE; by Marcos De Queiroz Grillo; Angela Palmeira Ferreira; Fernando Migliaccio and Hilberto Mascarenhas, the latter in charge of the construction company’s secret books (2006-2015) as DOE manager.

Consequently, after granting the extension, Martinelli requested that a letter be sent to the Department of Heritage Recovery and International Legal Cooperation of the Ministry of Justice of Brazil to inform the judicial authority of Panama about the lack of reliability of the evidence, as well as as the impossibility of carrying out instructional acts based on these elements, is read in the favorable ruling of the Brazilian Court. He also requested that if the requested extension is unknown, he be granted an ex officio writ of habeas corpus.

After examining the petition, Judge Toffoli verified that the criminal action against the applicant uses evidence declared useless by the Court in previous rulings. Therefore, I have agreed to the request and extended the effects of the decision issued to veto the evidence obtained from Drousys and My Web Day that was used in the collaboration agreement by Odebrecht as well as the requested testimonies. It also determined that the judicial system be notified “highlighting the prohibition of the practice in national territory, any act of instruction or cooperation of these elements so that they may be sent to the Government of Panama,” reads the final resolution of the ruling.