The former Ombudsman Patria Portugal (2011-2013) was arrested at the request of the compliance judge of the first judicial circuit José Carrera, who ordered the execution of the conviction of the former official for the start of serving 96 months in prison as the main sentence and 48 months of disqualification to exercise public functions.

The Portuguese lawyers have exhausted all judicial instances in their defense since the case came before the courts, after the investigation by the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor into aggravated embezzlement to the detriment of the Ombudsman, a fact that dates back to 2012.

In September 2022, the Supreme Court of Justice, as a last instance, confirmed the sentence of eight years in prison. But the execution had not been ordered, which is why the prosecutor’s office, noticing the delay, requested a control hearing to enforce the sentence.

Portugal attended the hearing that was held yesterday, June 20, and at the end of the session the judge ordered his detention in a prison.

In the investigation, the prosecutor’s office demonstrated that while Portugal was in office, it issued guidelines tending to give priority to a consulting contract with the company Imaginarium Studio, SA, for the sum of $249,845 without just cause. The contract had been described as an “obvious urgency” which led to the embezzlement of funds from the public entity.

The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, represented by prosecutor Johaira González, determined that the Portugal agreement allowed a company with no proven experience to be hired by the State to redesign the institution’s digital portal, despite having qualified personnel with experience who could perform this task, according to various interviews with officials who were in charge of designing the logo and the page.

The lawyer Dixiana Lorena Acosta participated for the private technical defense, who announced the appeal to the decision of the compliance judge. This hearing was set for June 26.

The present is a very different scenario from the one that Portugal experienced 15 years ago.

At that time, he had gone to the Ministry of Government and Justice to hear one word: sorry.

The foregoing because the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) had ordered the Panamanian State to apologize to Portugal for the forced disappearance of his father, the community leader Heliodoro Portugal, who was tortured and extrajudicially executed on May 14, 1970 during the dictatorship Military in Panama

Heliodoro Portugal, a 36-year-old promoter of the “Revolutionary Unity Movement,” was in a cafe located in Panama City. Two people in civilian clothes got out of a truck and forced Mr. Portugal to get into the vehicle, which left for an unknown destination. No more was heard of him despite the fact that the family searched for him tirelessly.

It was in 1999 when the body of Mr. Portugal was identified, which was in a barracks in Tocumen.

As a result of the murder of her father, Patria filed a petition with the IACHR in June 2001. Seven years later, the Court declared the international responsibility of the State for the violation of the American Convention to the detriment of her father and asked the government of the day to request forgiveness to the next of kin, as well as compensation for material and non-pecuniary damage. But that word, sorry, was never pronounced during the protocol act led by the then Minister of Government and Justice, Dilio Arcia.