The former director of the extinct National Aid Program (PAN), Giacomo Tamburelli, and the former director of the National Police, Gustavo Pérez, were sentenced to ten years in prison (120 months) for the crime of embezzlement.
According to the First Settlement Court for Criminal Cases of the First Judicial Circuit of Panama, they were declared criminally responsible and sentenced to 120 months in prison, as perpetrators of the crime against the public administration, in the form of embezzlement, to the detriment of the Fund Social Investment (FIS), currently called Social Assistance Directorate (DAS).
The court estimated in its conviction No. 46 of March 10, 2023, that both former officials, due to their lack of care and breach of their duties as directors at the time, allowed economic damage to the State to occur in the amount of B/. 10,871,857.48, by virtue of the purchase of highly sensitive security equipment, in accordance with the audit carried out by the Comptroller General of the Nation.
In the conviction it is revealed that, due to the circumstances of time and place, the former directors at the time were in charge and responsible for the administration of the technological equipment acquired by contract. “The fraudulent intent of the defendants is evident, since they carried out actions tending to the acquisition of a piece of equipment whose need is questionable, using State resources assigned to an entity that must allocate said resources to merely social activities in favor of the most in need”, emphasizes the sentence.
In this sense, given the facts declared proven that proved the criminal responsibility of both defendants, this court also applied to those sentenced the ancillary penalty of disqualification from the exercise of public functions for the same term, which will run once they serve the main sentence of imprisonment. .
This case is related to a complaint filed on December 2, 2014, in which alleged irregularities that occurred within the extinct Social Investment Fund were made public.
