PANAMA DELAYED COLOMBIAN WAKED INQUIRY FOR FOUR YEARS

If you are looking for an example of Panama's broken judicial system, read this. When the Office of the Colombian General prosecutor, in 2007, asked for information about the Waked* Money Laundering Organization (criminal history of the Wakeds, their companies, and the illicit flow of money between Colombia and Panama), the Supreme Court of Justice did not respond for four long years.

Who is to blame ? Both José Ayu Prado, then the Attorney General, and the Court's former Chief Justice, Alejandro Moncada Luna. Both men have since been implicated in massive bribe cases. Taking money to delay cases is par for the course in Panama's dysfunctional court system, and the corruption goes all the way to the Supreme Court of Justice, where an illegal gratuity will generally result in a ruling contrary to the rule of law.

José Ayú Prado

Anyone who seeks justice in the Panamanian court system, be it in the civil or criminal sphere, will not only fail to receive it, he will be charged a clearly excessive fee, by the lawyers he engages, for the injustice that results.

Alejandro Moncada Luna

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*A final note: for those who are following the Waked case, a statement made by one of the participants in the organization's massive money laundering organization has been corrected. The amount of money laundered each month in Panama, by the Waked syndicate was not $2m, it was between $2m and $4m.