Panamanian ex-President Ricardo Martinelli, a convicted felon granted asylum by Nicaragua, remained inside that country’s embassy Friday more than a year after he first entered and a week after Panama said that it would allow him to leave.
The former leader declared Panama’s original offer a “trap” after the government declined to extend the deadline for him to safely leave for Nicaragua late Thursday.
“It was a vile trap what they wanted to do to me, which on one hand was giving me a supposed way out, (while) on the other they wanted to (expletive) me, making up a bunch of things,” Martinelli said in a video posted to Instagram early Friday.
Minutes before the midnight deadline, Panama’s Foreign Affairs Ministry said in a statement that it wouldn’t extend the window for Martinelli to leave.
It said that the Nicaraguan government hadn’t responded about moving Martinelli out of its embassy and eventually out of the country. Panama would continue to respect the asylum Nicaraguan granted to Martinelli, it said.
Martinelli has been inside the Nicaraguan Embassy 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 of office. (AP)
