Information leaked to the press in Panama has implicated Judge Alejandro Moncada Luna, the former chief of the Supreme Court of Justice, in the deliberate destruction of documentary evidence implicating former President Ricardo Martinelli, and most of his ministers, in a massive insider trading scandal, conducted through Financial Pacific (FP). It has been alleged that Moncada Luna intentionally allowed the two directors of FP to take away, and dispose of, company books and records that show trades in Petaquilla Minerals Ltd. stock, made by Martinelli, and his ministers, and which are indispensable for the filing of criminal charges against them.
According to Mayte Pellegrini, the former Financial Pacific staff member presently in custody, in connection with an alleged $12m embezzlement of company assets, Moncada Luna was directly responsible for allowing FP officers to cart away critical evidence; he also delayed the liquidation of the firm, through his failure to hold the company to a short-term deadline for compliance with his orders.
The Panamanian public is still seething over Moncada's $5m in real estate investments, which is clearly far in excess of his government salary, and other financial assets. Suspended from the Court, he is presently under house arrest, and under investigation for corruption and money laundering. He failed to list his substantial real estate assets in a required court filing. Members of the Supreme Court of Justice are well known to have been engaged in the sale of justice, regarding their decisions in cases pending before them , but the present scandal involves Moncada taking action to interfere with, and impede, a pending criminal investigation, as a member of the Supreme Court of Panama.
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