Miami, Jun 11 (DIN NEWS)<\/b> Panamanian former president Ricardo Martinelli was extradited to his home country today to face charges of spying on journalists and political opponents.<\/p>\n
Martinelli, president 2009-2014, was transferred from the federal prison in Miami to the Opa Locka Executive Airport, where he was placed on a flight to Panama City around 6:20 am (local time).<\/p>\n
A handcuffed Martinelli, wearing a tan suit and escorted by US Mashals, greeted reporters gathered to see him at the airport.<\/p>\n
“I’m ready to watch the World Cup!” he said, giving a thumbs-up. Panama qualified for the tournament, which begins on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Martinelli, 66, is accused of spying on the telephone calls of more than 150 people, including journalists and politicians.<\/p>\n
He is under investigation in Panama in about 20 other cases of corruption, but those are not referred to in the extradition request.<\/p>\n
Under a 1905 extradition treaty, he can only be tried in Panama for the crimes alleged in the request.<\/p>\n
Martinelli was detained in June 2017 and had been incarcerated in Miami since then.<\/p>\n
The ex-president claims that he is the victim of a “vendetta” by Panamanian President Juan Carlos Varela, his former vice president.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Miami, Jun 11 (DIN NEWS) Panamanian former president Ricardo Martinelli was extradited to his home country today to face charges of spying on journalists and political opponents. Martinelli, president 2009-2014, was transferred from the federal prison in Miami to the Opa Locka Executive Airport, where he was placed on a flight to Panama City around 6:20 am (local time). A handcuffed Martinelli, wearing a tan suit and escorted by US Mashals, greeted reporters gathered to see him at the airport. “I’m ready to watch the World Cup!” he said, giving…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12960,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12959"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12959"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12959\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12961,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12959\/revisions\/12961"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}