Tommy Robinson can now settle down to his SEVENTH spell on a foreign sun lounger this year after all.
While he was waiting in the detention room at Panama City airport to be deported back to the UK, the local mayor intervened to get him into the country.
We reported yesterday how Robinson, in search of a holiday destination where he wouldn’t be recognised, had been held at Bogota airport in Colombia and refused entry. He was, the Colombians said, a risk to the security of the state.
They did, however, allow him the option of booking a flight to another destination. He chose Panama, but was again held when he landed at Panama City. There, glum-faced, he posted online that he was waiting for a deportation flight.
And that’s where the Mayor of Panama City, Mayer Mizrachi, came in. Dismissing Colombia’s reasons for booting Robinson out as “idiotic claims” he got Robinson released and into the country.
“Tommy’s resting easy in Panama” he announced.
Mr Mizrachi has reason not to attach much value to the views of the Colombian legal system: ten years ago he was arrested in Cartagena and locked up for several months in Bogota’s notorious La Picota prison having been accused in Panama of embezzlement and money laundering. The money laundering charge is still outstanding.
Mizrachi is also related to former Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli, who was granted asylum in the Nicaraguan embassy after being sentenced to 10 years jail for money laundering.
He was elected mayor last June, running as a candidate who would make Panama City one of the world’s leading cities and as a major advocate for Bitcoin use.
Mizrachi calls himself Chacalde – a combination of the words for ‘mayor’, and ‘lowlife criminal’.
Clearly, in Robinson, he sees a kindred spirit.
