THE FORMER director of Panama’s National Security Council, Alejandro Garuz, awaiting trial in the  Martinelli era wiretapping scandal was transferred on Tuesday April 21 from La Gran Joya Prison in Pacora, to the relatively more comfortable El Renacer prison in Gamboaon Tuesday April 21 

Garuz has been under preventive detention, while being investigated for allegedly intercepting up to 150 journalists,, leaders of civil society and political opponents of Ricardo Martinelli
Garuz and another former Security Council director, Gustavo Pérez Garuz and two former officials of the agency (fugitives: Ronni Rodriguez and Guillermo Pitty )are slated for a preliminary hearing before the 16th Criminal Court August 17-21 for the alleged commission of offenses inviolability of secrecy and privacy.
Perez is already in El Renacer where he was transferred because of safety concerns and his complaints of claustrophobia. Other high profile Renacer inmates are former military dictator Manuel Antonio Noriega; former Supreme Court judge Alejandro Moncada Luna, and former director of the National Assistance Program (PAN), Rafael Guardia Jaén, investigated for procurement irregularities during the previous administration.