The former premises of the Mossack and Fonseca law firm, in Panama City, May 9, 2016 (AFP/Archives/RODRIGO ARANGUA)
The proceedings in the “Panama Papers” trial, an international tax evasion scandal revealed in 2016, were closed on Friday, with the court expected to deliver its judgment within 30 days.
“The court invokes the deadline (of 30 days) provided for by law to rule,” declared magistrate Baloisa Marquinez at the end of the proceedings. This period may, however, be extended in cases of voluminous files.
The maximum sentence for money laundering — 12 years in prison — was requested Wednesday against the two founders of the now-closed Mossack Fonseca law firm.
Jürgen Mossack, 76, and Ramon Fonseca, 71, “received and transferred funds from illicit activities in Germany and Argentina,” said the prosecutor in charge of the fight against organized crime, Isis Soto, in requesting their conviction.
The two defendants also “concealed, covered up and provided false information to banking entities to open accounts and conceal ownership of assets,” she added.
Jürgen Mossack, one of the main defendants in the “Panama Papers” affair, arrives at the court in Panama City, April 8, 2024 (AFP/Archives/MARTIN BERNETTI)
For the prosecution, they are responsible for having facilitated, through the Panamanian cabinet, the creation of opaque companies in which executives of the German multinational Siemens deposited millions of euros outside the real accounts of the business. These companies would have been used to hide money from the payment of commissions.
The law firm would also have been used to keep money from a large fraud in Argentina.
Sentences of five to 12 years in prison were also requested against 24 other defendants, mainly former employees of the firm. The acquittal of three others was called for.
“A great injustice has been done, not only to me, but also to all the people who worked with me, and there are many of them,” Jürgen Mossack said after the hearing.
“I am not responsible,” the lawyer of German origin proclaimed at the opening of the trial on April 8.
The court where the “Panama Papers” trial is taking place, on April 8, 2024 in Panama City (AFP/MARTIN BERNETTI)
The affair broke out in 2016 after the publication of an investigation, known as the “Panama Papers”, carried out by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICJI).
Based on the leak of 11.5 million documents from the Mossack Fonseca study, it revealed that heads of state and government, leading politicians and figures from finance, sports and the artistic world hid properties, businesses, capital and profits from the tax authorities.
The reforms undertaken by Panama following the scandal allowed it in 2023 to be removed from the “gray list” of the anti-money laundering organization GAFI. But Panama is still on the blacklist of tax havens established by the European Union.
© 2024 AFP
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