MIAMI — A U.S. federal judge in Florida has denied bond for a former Panamanian president who is fighting efforts to send him back to his home country to face political espionage charges.

U.S. Magistrate Edwin Torres made his ruling Friday. The order points out that Ricardo Martinelli’s significant wealth and foreign connections make him a serious flight risk.

Martinelli was arrested in Miami last month on an extradition warrant from Panama. A final extradition hearing is set for July 25.

The former president failed to show up at a December 2015 court hearing in Panama on charges that include illegally monitoring phone and other conversations of at least 150 people with an extensive surveillance system he created with public funds. He denies wrongdoing and is seeking asylum. </s> PANAMA’S fugitive former president, Ricardo Martinelli, presents a flight risk and must remain in custody until the request for extradition to Panama is heard on July 25.

The decision was made Friday July 7 by Judge Edwin Torres of the Court of South District of Florida.

Torres assessed the risk of flight, given that Martinelli, has connections around the world, “so this Court cannot lose control over him until the process is concluded “.

He also underscored the commitment made by the United States to the bilateral extradition with Panama in 1904, and other multilateral conventions of which The United States is a signatory.

“We undoubtedly invoke extradition treaties for pending cases much more than other countries ask us for extradition, “the judge said

Torres also reflected on the relevance of extradition agreements. He remembered that already In 1988 his colleague John Kester warned that the tools of collaboration between

countries would become very important, given the increase in multinational transactions, ease and speed of air interconnections and the rise of complex economic crimes.

“This forecast is certainly true, as this particular case demonstrates,” he said.

The judge denied the bail request of Martinelli’s lawyers, despite the fact that he proposed to deposit 10% of a $5 million bond, backed by his w ife Marta Linares de Martinelli, plus another personal bond of $2 million, as well as deliver

the custody of his private plane, wear an electronic bracelet, stay in his Miami residence and and hire the services of a 24-hour police agent (retired).

Martinelli has been detained since June 12 and is required in Panama to face trial for the unauthorized interception of communications by the Security Council during his regime. If convicted he could face up to 21 years imprisonment.

He is also facing numerous corruption and embezzlement charges which he and his supporters have labeled “political persecution. </s> Image copyright Reuters Image caption Ollanta Humala and his wife, Nadine Heredia, at the Nationalist Party HQ in Lima on Thursday

The former president of Peru, Ollanta Humala, and his wife, Nadine Heredia, have turned themselves in after a judge ordered that they be placed in pre-trial detention.

They face 18 months of detention while money-laundering charges are prepared.

The accusations stem from Brazil's expansive anti-corruption probe, known as Operation Car Wash.

The couple, who co-founded the left-wing Peruvian Nationalist Party, have denied the charges.

Mr Humala tweeted: "This [detention] confirms an abuse of power, which we will face in defence of our rights and the rights of all."

Peru's prosecutor's office made the request on Tuesday, and a judge ruled in its favour on Thursday.

The couple have been under investigation for three years for allegedly accepting money from Brazilian construction company Odebrecht to bankroll Mr Humala's election campaigns.

He is also accused of taking money from late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavéz.

Prosecutor Germán Juaréz accused Mr Humala of "morally wounding society" by running on a campaign that used "illicit money".

The prosecution also said it feared the pair would flee the country unless they were jailed.

Earlier this year, the same judge, Richard Concepción, ordered the pre-trial detention of another of Peru's former presidents, Alejandro Toledo, over bribery allegations, but he refused to turn himself in. He is now believed to be in the United States.

Mr Humala ruled Peru from 2011 to 2016.

He was an ally of former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who this week was sentenced to nine and a half years in prison for corruption, also resulting from Operation Car Wash.

The Brazilian investigations have unearthed what is dubbed as the biggest national corruption scandal of all time, leading to allegations against many of the continent's most famous politicians.

Former presidents Ricardo Martinelli, from Panama, and Mauricio Funes, from El Salvador, are among those who have also been accused of benefiting from bribes.

Brazil's current president, Michel Temer, is currently waiting to hear if a bribery case against him will get to the country's Supreme Court. </s> PANAMA CITY (AP) — Two businessmen emerged in a tight race for Panama’s presidency with three-quarters of votes tallied from Sunday’s election, which came after a campaign that focused on corruption and slowing economic growth in this Central America trade and financial hub.

Laurentino Cortizo of the Democratic Revolutionary Party had 33%, just ahead of Rómulo Roux of the Democratic Change party at 31%. There is no runoff in Panama.

Dance music played at Cortizo’s campaign headquarters, though supporters anxiously watched the narrow lead as results continued to come in. The Democratic Revolutionary Party, once the political arm of Panama’s former military government, lost the last two presidential contests.

Voters cast ballots at roughly 3,000 locations without major incidents while choosing among a field of seven mostly business-friendly candidates seeking to take over Panama’s leadership for the next five years.

The election followed revelations of money laundering in the so-called Panama Papers that dinged the country’s reputation on the world stage. The trove of secret financial documents showed how some of the world’s richest people hid their money using shell companies in Panama and other countries.

Despite the scandal, Panama remains a strategic location for commerce, anchored by the heavily trafficked Panama Canal shipping route and a recently expanded international airport.

Cortizo, a 66-year-old cattleman who studied business administration in the U.S., entered the election with a lead in the polls. He was agriculture minister under President Martin Torrijos and campaigned on vows to clean up Panama’s image after recent corruption scandals.

Juan Carlos Cordoba, a 62-year-old merchant who showed up early to vote on the outskirts of the capital, said he doubted Panama can eradicate corruption, “but it can be minimized, and a better distribution of wealth can be achieved.”

Roux, a 54-year-old businessman, had the endorsement of supermarket magnate and former President Ricardo Martinelli, who is in jail awaiting trial on charges of political espionage. Roux held multiple government posts during the Martinelli administration, including minister of canal affairs and foreign minister.

Roux highlighted during his campaign that Panama’s economy grew only 3.8% last year, versus a 10.7% expansion in 2012, when Martinelli was president.

The top three was rounded out by an independent candidate, who got on the ballot by collecting thousands of signatures. Ricardo Lombana, 45, is a lawyer who gained prominence via a citizen’s movement several years ago that questioned impunity and corruption in the country. Early results showed Lombana with 20% of the vote.

Lombana’s campaign focused on drumming up support via social media, rather than through the costly television spots favored by candidates from Panama’s three main political parties.

Turnout was strong at 72% as voters showed up under a hot, cloudy sky Sunday in the sixth presidential election since a U.S. invasion ousted strongman Manuel Noriega in 1989.

Panamanian voters were also concerned about rising unemployment, public schools in decline, unreliable water service and insufficient garbage collection in the capital.

Outgoing President Juan Carlos Varela, a 55-year-old conservative and liquor industry veteran, will likely be remembered as a leader who strengthened the country’s political and economic ties with China. Panama established diplomatic relations with China, and disavowed Taiwan, in 2017.

Varela, who was constitutionally barred from re-election, assumed the presidency on promises to crack down on corruption and cut food prices. His greatest achievement was the opening with China, according to political analyst Roberto Eisenmann, who said the diplomatic warming with China “is a step that should have been taken 15 years ago.”

China and the U.S. are the main clients of the Panama Canal, the economic engine of the country. The U.S. completed construction of the Panama Canal in 1914, creating a transoceanic path across an isthmus that had been a province of Colombia. The U.S. turned over control of the canal to Panama in 1999, with assurances that the canal would remain a neutral zone that doesn’t favor one country over another.

Varela pushed to strengthen ties with China despite years of pressure from the U.S. to backtrack on the warming diplomatic ties. Several countries in Latin America have cut ties with Taiwan in recent years and received generous infrastructure investments as part of China’s Belt and Road initiative. These developments have stoked some concerns in Washington that China is building alliances in the region, possibly at the expense of U.S. geopolitical and economic interests.

“We have always lived in the shadow of the United States and it was rather obvious that the United States would have preferred that we did not take this step” to open diplomatic relations with China, said Eisenmann.

Cortizo said he welcomes greater ties with China, provided that the warming relations do not damage Panama’s strategic relationship with the U.S.

Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. </s> Judge orders Humala and his wife, Nadine Heredia, be held for up to 18 months while they are investigated for graft.

Peru's former president and his wife have been taken into custody after a judge ordered them detained while prosecutors prepare charges against them for alleged money laundering.

Soon after the judge issued his order on Thursday night, Ollanta Humala and Nadine Heredia were driven to the courthouse under a heavy police escort.

Judge Richard Concepcion ordered them held for up to 18 months while they are investigated.

The ruling marked the second time that the judge has mandated jail time for an ex-president since a massive graft scandal in neighbouring Brazil rippled into Peru.

Prosecutor German Juarez cited testimony from former executives of Brazilian builder Odebrecht to accuse the couple of taking $3m in illegal campaign funds during the 2011 presidential election.

READ MORE: The scandal and tragedy of Lula's corruption conviction

Juarez also accused the pair of taking undeclared funds from the late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez during a previous, unsuccessful presidential bid.

"Here's a president who rose to the presidency and governed us with an electoral campaign built on illicit money. That's serious because it morally wounds society," Juarez said.

Humala, a former military officer who led Peru from 2011 to 2016, turned himself in with Heredia, the co-founder of his nationalist party, immediately after the ruling. Both denied wrongdoing and called their pre-trial detention unfair.

As they headed to the courthouse, Humala said in a Tweet: "This confirms the abuse of power which we will confront in defense of our rights and those of everyone."

Prosecutors filed the petition for the couple's detention earlier in the week, arguing they might flee Peru to evade justice.

In February, Judge Concepcion had ordered the arrest of another former Peruvian president, Alejandro Toledo, for related charges. Toledo is in the US fighting attempts by Peruvian authorities to have him deported to answer the charges.

Authorities across Latin America have been moving to charge officials accused of taking some $800m in bribes from Odebrecht. The company acknowledged the bribes when it signed a plea agreement in December with the US Justice Department.

The bribes include some $29m paid in Peru for projects built during the administrations of Toledo, Humala and former President Alan Garcia.

The same scandal has ensnared former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who was convicted on Wednesday and sentenced to almost 10 years in jail for taking gifts from another Brazilian builder that along with Odebrecht paid bribes to politicians in exchange for government contracts.

Silva denies the accusation and will remain free while he appeals what he says are politically motivated charges. </s> PANAMA CITY (AP) - The Latest on Panama (all times local):

Presidential candidate Rómulo Roux of Panama has rejected the preliminary results announced by the country's Electoral Court that put him in second place.

The Court declared opposition candidate, Laurentino Cortizo as the "virtual winner" of Sunday's presidential race by a narrow lead of 2 percentage points pending the final recount.

Roux claimed, without offering immediate proof, that his campaign had been hindered by irregularities in the vote.

According to the early results, Cortizo of the Democratic Revolutionary Party had won 33% of the votes versus 31% for Roux, who is from former President Ricardo Martinelli's Democratic Change party.

There is no presidential runoff in Panama, so the top vote-getter in the field of seven mostly business-friendly candidates wins outright and takes office July 1 for a five-year term.

Panama's Electoral Court has declared opposition candidate Laurentino Cortizo the "virtual winner" in the country's tight presidential election late Sunday.

The vote followed a campaign focused on corruption and slowing economic growth in this Central America trade and financial hub and turned into the tightest presidential contest in recent years.

After scrutinizing the results from 92% of polling stations, electoral court magistrate Heriberto Araúz said in a televised announcement shortly before midnight that Cortizo had a narrow lead of 2 percentage points over businessman Rómulo Roux. The unexpectedly close race pitted the candidates of the country's two most important opposition political forces.

Cortizo, of the Democratic Revolutionary Party, had 33% of the votes versus 31% for Roux, from former President Ricardo Martinelli's Democratic Change party. There is no runoff in Panama, so the top vote-getter in the field of seven mostly business-friendly candidates wins outright and takes office July 1 for a five-year term.

Before the magistrate's announcement, Roux vowed not to concede defeat, saying the results were too close and suggesting that the race was marred by irregularities. </s> WASHINGTON — The Trump administration on Monday designated a former official of the Venezuelan intelligence service, two of his aides and 20 companies under their control as narcotics traffickers.

Vice President Mike Pence announced the sanctions on Pedro Luis Martin Olivares during a speech at the Organization of American States.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control said that Martin was indicted on 2015 by a grand jury in Florida for willfully conspiring to distribute a controlled substance into the United States and possession with intent to distribute a controlled substance on board an aircraft registered in the United States.

Additionally, OFAC designated Walter Alexander Del Nogal Marquez and Mario Antonio Rodriguez Espinoza for assisting Martin, and 20 companies in Venezuela and Panama that are owned or controlled by these three individuals.

The action freezes any of their assets in the U.S. or held by people in the U.S.

Those sanctioned Monday are in addition to the dozens of current and former Venezuelan officials the U.S. already has targeted.

They include Vice President Tareck El Aissami for alleged involvement in international drug trafficking. The U.S. also has imposed economic sanctions on Venezuela at a time when it's seeking to refinance a huge international debt. </s> Lima: A Peruvian judge issued an international arrest warrant on Thursday for former president Alejandro Toledo and said he should spend up to 18 months in jail while prosecutors investigate him for allegedly taking $20 million (Dh73.46 million) in bribes from Brazilian builder Odebrecht SA.

Judge Richard Concepcion said evidence uncovered so far in a graft probe, including testimony from an Odebrecht executive and bank records, warranted putting Toledo in “preventive prison” while charges of influence peddling and money laundering were prepared.

In issuing an arrest warrant, Concepcion said Toledo appeared to have used the “high office of the presidency” to “make an illegal pact” to sell off a highway project that promised to integrate the region.

Toledo, who rose to power denouncing the corruption of his predecessor, has repeatedly denied taking bribes from Odebrecht.

Toledo was in France last week and absent from the hearing.

If found guilty, he could be sentenced to up to 15 years in prison, lead prosecutor Hamilton Castro said.

Toledo “laughed at Peruvian society, he laughed at the expectations Peruvian society had for ... clean public work projects,” Castro told the court hearing into the prosecutor’s request for “preventive prison” for Toledo.

Toledo’s attorney Heriberto Benitez accused the judge of having a “vengeance” and said he would appeal against the ruling.

“He can’t come back ... I wouldn’t recommend it,” Benitez told reporters. “With judges like this, careful!” The government of President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, who served as Toledo’s finance minister and prime minister a decade ago when the contracts were awarded, said it would offer a reward for information leading to Toledo’s capture if he did not turn himself in.

Odebrecht has been at the centre of a growing graft scandal in Latin America since admitting to doling out hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes from Peru to Panama.

The revelation, made in US courts in December, threatens to implicate presidents and former presidents who once promoted the hydroelectric plants, highways and irrigation canals that Odebrecht has built in the past two decades.

Toledo, a shoeshine boy turned economist who plays up his indigenous roots, inspired scores of Peruvians to vote for him in 2001 as an antidote to widespread graft in the government of Alberto Fujimori, who is now serving a 25-year prison sentence for corruption and human rights abuses.

Prosecutor Castro opened his case, that Toledo be jailed while investigations continue, quoting the Incan law “ama sua” or “do not steal.” He said Toledo met the head of Odebrecht Peru, Jorge Barata, in a luxury hotel in Rio de Janeiro in 2004 and promised to help the firm win two highway contracts in exchange for $35 million.

Odebrecht only paid $20 million because Toledo did not change the bidding terms to exclude competitors, Castro said, citing testimony from Barata. Toledo did, however, change laws to pave the way for Odebrecht’s bid and pressured the tendering committee to pick its proposal, Castro said.

Some $10 million in transfers from Odebrecht have been traced to offshore companies linked to Yosef Maiman, an Israeli businessman and longtime friend of Toledo tasked with receiving the bribes, Castro said.

Maiman did not respond immediately to requests for comment.

The contracts helped pave a highway from the Andes through the Amazon to connect Peru’s Pacific ports and Brazil’s Atlantic shores. Originally requiring an investment of $658 million, cost overruns pushed the final price tag for the two contracts to $1.34 billion, according to the comptroller.

Odebrecht and its junior partner on the projects, Peru’s biggest construction conglomerate, Grana y Montero, still maintain a 656km stretch of the highway. </s> Prosecutors in Guatemala have detained ex-president Alvaro Colom and almost his entire former cabinet in a corruption case involving a bus contract.

Prosecutors in Guatemala have detained ex-president Alvaro Colom and almost his entire former cabinet in a corruption case involving a bus contract.

Colom, who governed from 2008 to 2012, is the latest in a series of former presidents to face legal problems.

He was recently named by the Organisation of American States as an envoy to Honduras, in a bid to help sort out disputed elections there. Special prosecutor Juan Francisco Sandoval, who said Colom was arrested on Tuesday, is looking into the questionable purchases of public buses for Guatemala City.

Mr Sandoval said the detentions included the ex-interior minister and the former ministers of finance, defence, economy, education, labour, environment, health and sports and culture. The case centres around a public bus company known as Transurbano.

The government auctioned off 25-year concessions for Guatemala City bus routes and the private companies that won the contracts were later exempted from taxes. Prosecutors say the process was deeply flawed and included subsidies and other measures that benefited public servants.

A customs fraud scandal that allegedly sent kickbacks to then-president Otto Perez Molina and vice president Roxana Baldetti led both to resign in 2015. They have been jailed awaiting trial but more than 100 defence filings have delayed the trial.

Alfonso Portillo, Guatemala’s president from 2000 to 2004, was extradited to the US and pleaded guilty to money laundering conspiracy in 2014.

He admitted accepting $2.5 million in bribes from the government of Taiwan to continue to recognise the Asian nation diplomatically.
Former president of Panama Ricardo Martinelli is denied bond by United States magistrate judge Edwin Torres. He is accused of charges that include illegally monitoring phone and other conversations of at least 150 people. Martinelli was arrested in Miami last month on an extradition warrant from Panama.