https://www.critica.com.pa/nacional/varela-se-gasto-casi-1-millon-para-extraditar-el-loco-554868

The government of Juan Carlos Varela hired a firm that represented Chavismo and the Sandinistas and paid him about $ 1 million to manage the extradition of ex-president Ricardo Martinelli who had requested the Judicial Branch and was managed by Ambassador Emanuel González Revilla before the US Department of State.

On June 1, 2016, the Foreign Ministry in charge of Isabel de Saint Malo instructed the ambassador to Washington, Emanuel González to sign a contract with the American firm Foley Hoag LLP to manage the extradition of Martinelli.

The contract was signed three months before the Foreign Ministry itself sent the documentation to the State Department to formalize the extradition of the former governor, a procedure that was carried out on September 26.

The contract was extended for two and a half years. Disbursements reached the sum of $ 987,053.92. There were payments every month until after June 2018 when Martinelli chose to accept extradition.

The information had been kept secret and was learned after reports from Peru, where it was revealed that the government of that country hired the same study of Martinelli’s extradition, to process a similar request against former governor Alejandro Toledo. In Peru there was a publication informing about the contract.

Foley Hoag also took another large sum for being the lawyers of the Canal Authority to the claims of the United Group for the Canal

The US firm has represented the Venezuelan government in an arbitration that the Canadian mining company Cristallez filed against the oil company Citgo, a subsidiary of Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA)

Similarly, he represented the government of Daniel Ortega before the International Court of Justice in separate lawsuits against Colombia and Costa Rica regarding maritime rights in dispute in the Caribbean Sea.

Already before the government of the Panamanians had signed a contract with Rogelio Saltarín, private consultant and lawyer of the president Juan Carlos Varela, for $ 385,200 in order to collect evidence for the complaints that would be presented in the Office of the Prosecutor against officials of the Martinelli government, operation which launched what was called the “Parallel Procurator”.

There were at least 25 meetings with the Security Council in charge of Commissioner Rolando López Pérez and that he had among his main collaborators in that presidential intelligence agency the current attorney, Kenya Porcell. The contract was signed by the Minister of the Presidency, Álvaro Alemán.

Saltarín – who died at the end of last year – was very close to Varela. He represented him in a lawsuit filed by former President Martinelli for a crime against honor.

In addition, in the case of the ex-consul Jaime Lasso, for the donation of $ 10 million for his political campaign from Odebrecht and in the complaint for the purchase of Centuria, a yacht purchased for $ 3 million.