Justice of Panama sets first hearing date for Odebrecht case

Workers protest against corruption in connection with the scandal involving Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht, in front of Panama's Public Prosecutor's Office in Panama City on February 10, 2017. Ramon Fonseca Mora, a lawyer under arrest in the sprawling graft case involving Odebrecht, told reporters that Panamanian President Juan Carlos Varela confided he received "donations" from the Brazilian firm, which has paid millions of dollars in bribes to land huge public works contracts throughout Latin America.

/ AFP / RODRIGO ARANGUA (Photo credit should read RODRIGO ARANGUA / AFP via Getty Images)

(CNN Spanish) -

 A court in Panama set July 18, 2022 as the start of the main preliminary hearing in the Odebrecht case.

A total of 62 defendants will face justice.

They are accused of crimes against the economic order, in the form of money laundering, as well as crimes against the public administration, specifically corruption of public servants.

According to the date set by the Third Criminal Liquidation Court of the First Judicial Circuit of Panama, the main preliminary hearing is expected to conclude on August 5, 2022. However, another alternate date was scheduled for the preliminary hearing from 12 to 30 September of the same year.

In April, the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office forwarded to the Judicial Branch of Panama the file with the investigation of the Odebrecht case in the country.

The Third Criminal Court for Liquidation says it received it on June 1, 2021.

Among the natural persons and a legal entity that the Prosecutor's Office asked to call to trial for alleged money laundering, there are three former officials that the Public Ministry does not name, but who are part of the 2,748 volumes that the criminal process has, according to the Judicial Branch, and that are related to alleged bribes from the Odebrecht company.

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Details of Panama's investigation into Odebrecht

The Public Ministry previously said that the investigation established "that Odebrecht's unaccounted-for cash, with its complex structure, used national and foreign banks, transferring illicit money to public servants and their families for an amount greater than 100 million dollars, which they had a direct impact on the concession and payment of works carried out by the conglomerate "in Panama.

The defendants, explained the Public Ministry in a statement, would have used "Panamanian and foreign corporations, front men or interposed persons, insurance, fictitious contracts, and financing of political campaigns."

During the investigation, the Prosecutor's Office reached eight effective collaboration agreements and 11 penalties with a conviction.

Regarding the setting of the hearing date, Oswaldo Fernández, external lawyer of the Odebrecht company in Panama, highlighted that it is an important step on a "very voluminous and very complex" file because, among other things, it consists of many international assistances and information from the United States, Brazil and Switzerland, which generated the investigation in Panama.

“The company will continue to collaborate with the authorities of the Public Ministry and the Judicial Branch in everything that is its competence and in everything it has knowledge of.

That is the commitment that was assumed at a given moment and the commitment that is going to be fulfilled ”, assured the lawyer Oswaldo Fernández.

Odebrecht case