While Ricardo Martinelli’s team of well-heeled lawyers in Miami were preparing the paperwork for his release from eight month’s behind bars, Judge Marcia Cooke, upended on  Wednesday, February 14, the decision to grant him bail for $1 million made the previous day.

The Panama ex-president who was arrested near his Coral Gables mansion on June 12 last year will stay behind bars, at least until a court hears an appeal from prosecutors who consider the billionaire a high flight risk.

An extradition order is based on charges of illegal wiretapping of political opponents, journalists and businessmen. When he returns he will also face numerous corruption charges.

The Embassy of the United States in Panama said in an official statement signed by the judge, Cooke: "Mr. Martinelli will remain in jail."

Martinelli's team of attorneys was in the process of doing the legal proceedings to get the ex-leader's bail order in effect when they were caught by Judge Cooke's last-minute decision.

Martinelli has described Italian judicial proceedings involving him as a “soap opera”  as  Valter Lavitola,  a central figure in corruption trials related to Finmeccanica and Panama was jailed, released and jailed again.

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