MIAMI’S, Republican mayor,   Tomás Regalado, has sent a letter on official  letterhead to Judge Edwin Torres of the Southern District Court of Florida requesting bail for ex- president Ricardo Martinelli, detained in Miami since June 12.

In his note to Torres, dated August 1, Regalado says that given his “health problems" Martinelli needs to be at home with his family,  while the court decides whether or not to extradite him to Panama.

The mayor seems to have a close relationship With the ex-president, with whom he has been meeting since he moved to Miami reports La Prensa with his family and set up his office reports La Prensa.

Martinelli has been in Miami since February 2015, when the Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ) initiated investigations into the unauthorized interception of communications by the National Security Council, in the last two years of his mandate.

On December 21, 2015, the full Court declared him  "in default" for failing to appear at the hearing of charges, which is why they called for his arrest and extradition to the United States. The case has been deeply publicized In US  media.