First Offender

Panama's National Assembly, sitting last week as the jury for a high state trial, by a vote of 45-8 found ex-President Jose Ramon Guizado, 55, guilty as an accomplice in the assassination of his predecessor, Jose Antonio ("Chichi") Remon. The conviction was largely based on a confession by erratic Lawyer Ruben Miro, who admitted machine-gunning Remon at Panama's race track (TIME, Jan. 24), and implicated Guizado, Remon's Vice President. Panama will next prosecute Miro, and try to prove in the ordinary courts that he was the assassin.

Panamanian law, though it forbids the death penalty, provides a specially tough maximum sentence of 35 years for presidential assassins. But the Assembly gave Guizado, once a prominent, well-to-do contractor, only ten years. Then it knocked off a third of that sentence on motion of Deputy Demetrio Martinez, who pointed out earnestly that the crime was Guizado's first offense.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.