judicial

Ex banker lingers under house arrest

la prensa

at home: Former banker Rafael Arosemena, center, has so far thwarted the government’s attempts to return him to prison, and instead has been living at home.1101991

Former Banco Nacional de Panamá director Rafael Arosemena, who has already spent the last year and a half under house arrest following heart surgery, could wriggle out of the remainder of his El Renacer prison sentence via one of the justice system’s ever-widening cracks.

Supreme Court Magistrate Harley Mitchell is still awaiting an update on Arosemena’s state of health, an assessment he ordered from doctors at the Hospital Santo Tomás on June 27. In August, medical director of the hospital, Gerardo Victoria, responded with a note indicating that the Court’s requirements were insufficiently clear about what kind of health assessment should be conducted in Arosemena’s case.

Since then, José Vicente Pachar, director of the Instituto de Medicina Legal, emphasized the importance of following through with Mitchell’s order to re-evaluate Arosemena’s readiness to return to prison, but otherwise has not been in touch with medical administrators at Hospital Santo Tomás.

On Thursday, the country’s prison system director Luis Gordon, said there was nothing further he could do about the case until the court makes its ruling concerning the former banker.

Legal representatives for Arosemena, who was convicted in 2006 of eight counts of embezzlement involving more than $14 million, have maintained that their client is unfit to return to prison, citing the “many acts of prison violence in recent months.”

In a series of seemingly contradictory statements, the defense claimed that Arosemena, though in stable physical condition, is still much at risk because of heart problems.

“With all the violence that has occurred in prisons during the past five months, we still maintain our position that Arosemena should not return to prison. He must be kept in his house, where his physical integrity can be respected,” said one lawyer.

Additionally, defense lawyers have suggested that Arosemena should remain under house arrest for the duration of his sentence due to his advanced age.

However, no mention of the former banker’s actual age was ever disclosed.

The Junta Técnica at El Renacer had previously ordered Arosemena to return to the prison in April, but the order was stymied when his defense team introduced two requests for habeas corpus, one of which was approved. The other is still pending.

The once director of one of Panama’s principal banks, however, seems to be accustomed to living on the margins of the law. In fact, Arosemena was only extradited to Panama on 19 December 2006, after enjoying 16 years of political asylum in Mexico, where he fled after the U.S. invasion in December 1989.