Amnesty International Report 1995 - Panama

Over 200 former officials and military supporters of a previous government were pardoned. A former military leader and four soldiers were sentenced to prison terms for murder in two trials. Elections in May returned the Partido Revolucionario Democrático (PRD), Democratic Revolutionary Party, to power. The PRD had supported the de facto milit-ary government of former Panamanian Defense Forces chief, Brigadier General Manuel Noriega. In September the new President, Ernesto Pérez Balladares, announced a pardon for 222 former officials and military supporters of General Noriega. Some of them had been imprisoned without trial since the USA invaded Panama and overthrew General Noriega in 1989. President Pérez said those pardoned had been prosecuted for political reasons, but opponents of the measure feared it granted impunity to people who had committed common crimes including murder and misappropriation of state funds. Amongst those benefiting were Jaime Simons, former director of the state savings bank, and former President Manuel Solís Palma, in exile in Venezuela (see Amnesty International Reports 1993 and 1994). In March Manuel Noriega and a soldier were found guilty of murdering a major who had led an attempted coup in 1989. Both were sentenced in absentia to the maximum 20 years in prison by the Panamanian Supreme Court. However, Manuel Noriega was absolved of the murder of another rebel officer, Nicasio Lorenzo Tuñón, who died in prison after the failed coup, allegedly by committing suicide, a suggestion which his family disputed (see Amnesty International Reports 1990 and 1994). In April, three former soldiers were sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment for the 1971 kidnapping and murder of Colombian priest Héctor Gallegos, who was apparently targeted because of his efforts to organize cooperatives among the rural poor (see Amnesty International Report 1994).