Panama- Lawyer at center of bribery scandals loses $5 million bail appeal
Attorney Mauricio Cort the alleged frontman in multiple corruption and money laundering investigations will stay behind bars after The First Superior Court rejected an appeal against a judge's decision to deny the posting of a $5 million bond.
The constitutional guarantee protection appeal was against
the eleventh alternate criminal judge, Vila Urieta, in the case of the remodeling of Casco Viejo, during the
Martinelli administration (2009-2014).
Cort alleged that by not allowing him to post bail, Urieta
violated his guarantees. However, in a ruling on June 24, 2020, with a
presentation by Magistrate Carlos Raúl Trujillo, the Court concluded that the
judge's refusal was duly justified.
The ruling indicates that Urieta did not admit the posting
of the bond in favor of Cort, since all proceedings within that file have been
suspended after the presentation of an accumulation incident by the defense of
the former Minister of Public Works José Federico Suárez also investigated
before the Fifteenth Criminal Court.
The ruling orders that all the booklets and appeals that are
pending before the Eleventh Criminal Court shall be suspended until the matter
of jurisdiction is resolved.
Cort remains detained in the El Renacer penitentiary.
He is also being investigated for alleged money laundering
related to the construction of section II of Vía Brasil, awarded to the Spanish
FCC.
The lawyer is mentioned by Spanish authorities as part of a
complex network used for the alleged payment of bribes to obtain contracts to
carry out public works between 2009 and 2014.
In 2018, he signed a collaboration and penalty agreement in
the case that followed him for the bribes that Odebrecht paid in Panama.
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