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It did not provide names of the people who were acquitted.
Judge Baloisa Marquinez ordered that precautionary measures be
lifted against all the defendants, and said one criminal process
was now canceled due to the death of an unnamed defendant.
Ramon Fonseca, who co-founded now defunct law firm Mossack
Fonseca alongside German national Jurgen Mossack, died in May
after being hospitalized since early April.
Mossack Fonseca entered the spotlight in 2016 after leaked
confidential documents exposed accounts housed in tax havens
linked to individuals including former Argentine President
Mauricio Macri, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and
Argentine football star Lionel Messi.
Marquinez, who also ordered fines of 100 balboas ($100) each on
10 witnesses who did not comply with summonses, said evidence
collected from Mossack Fonseca's servers did not comply with the
chain of custody.
Regarding Operation Car Wash, a massive anti-corruption probe
that originated in Brazil, Marquinez ruled that it could not be
determined that money from illicit sources had entered Panama
from Brazil with the purpose of helping conceal crimes.
The investigation, which began in 2014, exposed sprawling
corruption schemes across the region and sent dozens of Latin
American political and business leaders to jail, including
several former presidents.
(Reporting by Elida Moreno; Writing by Sarah Morland; Editing by
Brendan O'Boyle and William Mallard)
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