An Appeals Court in Atlanta, Georgia, has rejected a request from Panama’s ex-president to bring the date of a hearing forward to May 14.
At the hearing, the court will listen to the oral arguments of the parties in favor and against the bail release of Martinelli.
It will be held on the date originally scheduled: in the week of Monday, July 16 The exact day and time is unknown. By that time the ex-president who has a waterside mansion in Corl Gable, Miami, will have spent over 13 months behind bars in spartan conditions in a Miami Federal detention center.
Martinelli's presence at the hearing is not mandatory.
He is awaiting extradition to Panama, to face trial for illegal interception of
communications by the of National Security Council, and embezzlement in the last two years of his mandate. Other corruption charges are pending.
The Atlanta hearing is convened to hear the allegations of the Miami attorney's office, which appealed the decision Judge Marcia Cooke - of the Court of the Southern District of Florida - to release Martinelli in for a $1 million bond.
The appellant is represented by the US Secretary of State, the United States Attorney General, and Robert Wilson, former warden of the Miami ..Federal Detention Center.
Martinelli's extradition was certified on August 31, 2017, by federal judge Edwin Torres; The decision was later endorsed by Judge Cooke, in a ruling disclosed on February 13. Cooke, however, decided that he could await his return to Panama in his mansion. His release was canceled the next morning as he was preparing to leave the jail.