Alcatel Exec Clams Up

The Legislative Assembly committee investigating the $900,000 fee the telecom company paid to former President Jose Maria Figueres got no help from Alcatel-Costa Rica former president Edgar Valverde last week.

The Costa Rican executive was condemned to a 15-year prison term last year in the case involving ex-President Miguel Angel Rodriguez last year, centering on Valverde's role in bribing Costa Rican public figures and officials. (See previous articles.)

Update: Ex-Presudet Fugyeres arruved in this country Sunday night from Miami. His press spokeman Jose Pena said he intends to explain to the inviestigating committee the circumstances of his payment from Alcatel for consulting services to Alcatel in 2001.

Valverde simply clammed up and refused to talk to members of the Public Income and Expenditure Committee about the payment to ex-President Figueres. Valverde was escorted by La Reforma prison guards (he is serving his sentence) but was loosed of his handcuffs during testimony.

Asked about the Figureres payment for "advising" Alcatel about the company bid for 400,000 cell phone lines in 2001, Valverde said, "That's one of the subjects we have to clarify in a pending court case we have and I'm abstaining from declaring," he said. (See previous articles.)

He was referring to the appeal he has pending for his 15-year sentence handed down in April, 2011, for having allegedly handed out $14 million in bribes to local officials. This was the same action in which Ex-President Rodriguez was given a five year sentence, also under appeal.

But after an hour and a half before the lawmakers, Valverde had clarified nothing. Opposition coalition deputies, especially Victor Emilio Granados of PASE, bored in hard but Valverde was tight lipped.

Ex-President Figueres's Mom, former first lady Karen Olsen, also was served a subpoena to testify but she at first refused to accept it. A family spokesman explained later that Olsen misunderstood what the document was.

But Olsen, although a North American of Danish descent, is fluently bilingual, drawing that explanation into doubt. Anyway, the family made arrangements with the committee chairman, deputy Marielos Alfaro, to pick up the document.

Figueres himself was in self exile for 11 years after the Legislative Assembly asked him to return from Europe to to testify about his role in the Alcatel bribery scandal. When he returned in December, he stayed on until early January but turned down a demand by a congressional committee to testify, returning to Spain.