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Gordon to handle Arosemena’s case

The decision to send former director of the Banco Nacional de Panamá Rafael Arosemena back to jail passed now to the Sistema Penitenciario Nacional’s director Luis Gordon. Arosemena is enjoying a measure of house-arrest since April 2007 after he underwent heart surgery.

Gordon himself confirmed yesterday that the board of directors of El Renacer prison urged that Arosemena’s re-incarceration be as soon as possible. But Gordon requested a third and final medical evaluation because of what he described as a "discordance" among Arosemena’s doctors about his real health conditions. If doctors consider Arosemena’s health conditions stable, the former banker could spend up to

Gordon pointed out that such evaluation should be conducted by specialists from the Santo Tomás Hospital and that he will take a final decision once he sees the results.

"Legal medicine tells us that he can return back to prison, but only if he follows his doctors’ recommendations, who, in turn, tells us that he cannot go back. We are in a dilemma and that’s why we asked for a third consultation," Gordon said.

Arosemena, who faces eight convictions for corruption totaling more than $14 million, returned to Panama in December 2006 after 16 years spent in asylum in Mexico.