During the last 15 years, Panamanian public opinion has faced a multiplicity of shocks linked to the actions and conduct of citizen Ricardo Alberto Martinelli Berrocal writes Rodrigo Noriega in La Prensa.

The decision to cowardly evade Panamanian justice, and invoke the right to political asylum in the embassy of the Republic of Nicaragua, is another gesture that demonstrates the amoral character of this character. Nicaragua has a dictatorship and is considered a pariah in the international community. It is a total disgrace for the noble people of that country that their government lends itself to this nonsense.

In legal terms, the conduct developed by former President Martinelli in the diplomatic headquarters of Nicaragua belongs to the typology called “diplomatic” asylum. This is a legal institution of International Humanitarian Law created in Latin America and which, today, is applied in all parts of the world. In 1949, the Peruvian leader Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre, besieged by persecution by the government of his country, went to the Colombian embassy to request asylum and remained there for five years, until the International Court of Justice in The Hague in The Netherlands agreed with Colombia's lawsuit against Peru, to allow Haya de la Torre to receive authorization (a safe conduct) to leave the country. This situation inspired the 1954 Diplomatic Asylum Convention, which was signed by practically all Latin American countries.

Article III of this convention says the following: “It is not lawful to grant asylum to persons who, at the time of requesting it, are accused or prosecuted before competent ordinary courts (sic) and for common crimes, or are convicted of such crimes and for said courts, without having served the respective sentences, nor to deserters from land, sea and air forces, unless the facts that motivate the asylum request, whatever the case, are clearly political in nature.

“The persons included in the previous paragraph who actually enter a place suitable to serve as asylum must be invited to leave or, as the case may be, handed over to the local government, which will not be able to judge them for political crimes prior to the time of handover.”.

In other words, there is no legitimacy to grant asylum. If Nicaragua did so, it is in violation of this Convention and therefore Panama has every right to deny the safe conduct necessary for citizen Martinelli Berrocal to leave Panamanian territory. None of the crimes for which Martinelli Berrocal has been convicted are political, none of the crimes for which he has been investigated are political, and even when his extradition to Panama occurred, in 2018 from the United States, that was examined. argument, and an independent federal judge found that there was no political persecution.

The Diplomatic Asylum Convention itself and the international practice of democratic States give Panama the tools to face this situation. If the government of Panama makes the mistake of granting safe passage to convicted criminal Martinelli Berrocal, Article XVII of the Diplomatic Asylum Convention allows Panama to notify Nicaragua of its intention to request the extradition of citizen Martinelli Berrocal.

Another line of action is the one that the United Kingdom took with the government of the Republic of Ecuador when it granted diplomatic asylum to Julian Assange on August 16, 2012. Assange was wanted by the United States justice system for computer espionage and was found based in the United Kingdom. This country refused to give safe passage to Assange, so he remained at the headquarters of the Ecuadorian embassy in London until April 11, 2019, when the Ecuadorian government authorized the United Kingdom government to detain Assange.

This incident also exposes the possibility that a third country, such as the United States or Spain, could be interested in prosecuting former President Martinelli Berrocal for other criminal cases and therefore request his extradition to Nicaragua if Panama grants him safe passage.

The other convention
The propaganda machine of former President Martinelli will try to manipulate public opinion with an invocation of the Political Asylum Convention of 1933, to justify that he is being persecuted politically, in order to avoid the limitations imposed by the Diplomatic Asylum Convention and the practice of international. It is important to take into account that the Political Asylum Convention says in article 1 the following: “It is not lawful for States to grant asylum in legations, warships, camps or military aircraft to those accused of common crimes who are being prosecuted in form or who have been condemned by ordinary courts, as well as deserters from land and sea.

That is to say, International Humanitarian Law establishes as a universal principle that political or diplomatic asylum cannot be given to people convicted of common crimes. The Panamanian State has every right, in accordance with its domestic legislation and international conventions, to deny the safe conduct that former President Martinelli Berrocal needs to obtain impunity. It is very important that the current government applies disciplinary and other appropriate measures to the agents of the Institutional Protection Service who were guarding the former president and allowed this evasive action against Panamanian justice. This is a critical moment for justice and the country's democratic institutions. The democratic world will support responsible action by Panama by not granting safe passage.

The government of President Laurentino Cortizo must ask the governments of countries with influence over Nicaragua, such as Cuba and Venezuela, to intercede so that the Central American country expels Mr. Martinelli Berrocal from the diplomatic headquarters. The PRD government has the advantage of an ideological affinity and a common membership in the Socialist International that would allow it to leverage that international influence to avoid mocking Panama and the Panamanians.