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PANAMA CITY (AP) — Former Panama President Ricardo Martinelli will be allowed to leave the Nicaraguan embassy where he’s been holed up for more than a year to travel to Nicaragua for humanitarian reasons, Panama Foreign Affairs Minister Javier Martínez-Acha Vásquez said Thursday.
Martinelli has been inside Nicaragua’s embassy in Panama since Panama moved to arrest him after his appeals ran out on his money laundering conviction. The 73-year-old former leader maintains that his prosecution has been politically motivated as he sought to run for a second term in office.
Martínez-Acha Vásquez said that by leaving the embassy and going to Nicaragua, Martinelli would be able to manage his legal defense under better conditions and receive medical treatment for unspecified issues.
“Given that justice’s timeline does not always coincide with health’s timeline, the Foreign Relations Ministry has decided to recognize the asylum granted to Mr. Martinelli Berrocal by the Nicaraguan government,” the foreign affairs minister said.
Martinelli has until midnight on March 31 to leave Panama.
Martinelli is a businessman and supermarket magnate who governed Panama from 2009 to 2014.
In 2023, he won his party’s nomination to seek the presidency again. However, he was convicted of money laundering and sentenced to more than 10 years in prison and fined $19 million.
Once the Supreme Court denied his appeal, he was ineligible to run.
Ultimately Martinelli supported his running mate, current President José Raúl Mulino. At the time, Mulino said that Martinelli would remain on the ballot and return to Panama once he had won.
Mulino said a month ago that he was going to meet with Nicaragua’s new ambassador to Panama and that permission for Martinelli to travel to Nicaragua was among the issues they would discuss.
Nicaragua granted Martinelli political asylum in February 2024. Panama had refused to grant Nicaragua permission to move Martinelli to Nicaragua. So Martinelli stayed in the political mix using social media to advance his agenda during last year’s presidential campaign.
Just before Thursday's announcement, Martinelli posted a video to Instagram in which he said that a special police force had surrounded the embassy and was checking everyone who entered. It was later reposted to X.
“I don’t know if they want to assault the embassy. I don’t know if they want to do something improper to me and I don’t know the reasons,” Martinelli said.
But an AP journalist outside the embassy saw only two police pickup trucks with fewer than a dozen normal police officers in them.
In a separate video published by the local newspaper La Prensa, Martinelli said he was with his dog Bruno and his lawyers analyzing the government’s announcement, which he described as a surprise. He reiterated his innocence.
The government did not immediately respond to a request to explain what the process for Martinelli’s departure would be.
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Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america
