The preliminary hearing of the Odebrecht case in Panama ended this Wednesday with two final arguments by the defense and the response of the Prosecutor’s Office by the Public Ministry to incidents presented by the lawyers in the middle of the process.
However, some of the statements that gave a lot to talk about were those made by the defenders of former President Juan Carlos Varela in the middle of the argument phase, related to Parlacen.
In this sense, the lawyer Orison Cogley, a member of the former president’s legal team, provided clarifications this morning on Radio Panama, in which he indicated that they are not part of the protection of his client.
«The exposure of this incidence is merely from the lawyers and not from our client, he has said that he will not belong; we explain that he has his own right that the Law properly grants him only for the fact of having been president of the Republic, because he won the elections in 2014 », he assured.
He added that “from that moment it was known that at the end of his mandate he had the prerogatives of a Parlacen deputy, because that is how the Law establishes it.”
He argued that this right is obtained by Varela for having been president and that the swearing-in grants, in that case, the administrative powers or prerogatives to receive salaries from the international organization.
Meanwhile, regarding the measures that could be applied to his client, he explained that it is ruled out that there has been a crime and that the prosecutor himself argued that the investigation case towards Varela would constitute a possible electoral crime.
