by Rod Hughes
Former President Miguel Angel Rodríguez is one step closer to trial after three years of intensive investigations by OIJ, the judicial police. Presecutors have filed a formal complaint on corruption charges revolving around alleged $800,000 in illegal payments he received from the French telecommunications company Alcatel. Ten others are charged with corruption in connection with the same case, including former high officials of the government telecommunications monopoly, ICE.
The charges revolve around the government granting of a $149 million communications contract to Alcatel in 2001. Because of poor service, ICE wound up taking over administration of the Alcatel cell phone service this year.
According to the daily La Nación, the president (1998-2002) is charged with aggravated corruption but the weekly The Tico Times found that a spokesman for the courts, while acknowledging the formal accusations, refused to specify the exact charges. The La Nación story also mentioned an alleged bribe of $1.5 million Rodriguez is supposed to have received from the Taiwanese government.
Two names do not appear on the list of the accused. One is ex-ICE board member Jose Antonio Lobo, who has confessed to having received $2.5 million from Alcatel but has since become a witness for the prosecution. The other is that of Christian Sapizan, former vice president of Alcatel’s foreign operations, who was convicted in a Florida federal court for paying out $2.5 million in bribes to Costa Rican functionaries.
The law that condemned Sapizan to jail was passed by the U.S. Congress after a scandal when Lockeed aircraft company executives were accused of bribing European political and military officials to accept the notoriously unstable F-104 Starfighter. Critics said the jet fighter was responsible for the deaths of as many German pilots as if that country had been at war.
As for Costa Rica, Rodriguez is only one ex-president under a cloud. Another Social Christian Unity party member, Rafael Angel Calderon, is being investigated for similar charges in a different case—the contracting by the Social Security Administration (known as the Caja) of Finnish companies for medical equipment and supplies. A number of executives of the Fischel pharmaceutical fiirm and officials of the Caja are also implicated.
A third ex-president, Jose Maria Figueres, son of a historical icon, is in self-imposed exile in Europe. He was invited by prosecutors to return for questioning in a third case but declined.
No such charge as influence-peddling exists here but such misuse of political clout is usually lumped under corruption charges, especially if linked with payment of money.