Hackers Sabotage Panama Website Amid Election Row

The Panamanian parliament website has been out of action for almost three weeks after an attack by hackers apparently angry at the election of the assembly's president, Pedro Miguel González, who is wanted on a murder charge in the US.

On January 9, the day on which the country marks clashes between US troops and Panamanians over the sovereignty of the Panama canal, a US flag briefly appeared on the front page of the website, which has been down ever since.

González, who became the assembly's president in September, is accused of killing Sergeant Zak Hernandez Laporte, a 22-year-old American soldier whose Humvee was ambushed just before the then US president, George Bush, visited Panama in 1992. The incident, which followed the invasion of Panama and overthrow of General Manuel Noriega by US forces three years earlier, led to a major diplomatic rupture.

González was acquitted of murder at a much-criticized trial in Panama in 1997, but is still wanted in the US. The White House expressed dismay and "deep disappointment" at his elevation to president.

It is not clear who is responsible for sabotaging the parliamentary site. Both Republicans and Democrats have condemned González's election.

"The election of Pedro Miguel González Pinzón - a person indicted for the murder of a US serviceman - to lead Panama's national assembly is a serious impediment to the US Congress's consideration of the US-Panama free trade agreement," the chairman of the US Senate finance committee, Max Baucus, a democrat, said in a statement.

The US has refused to ratify the deal until González is removed, something the president of Panama, Martin Torrijos, has resisted. Ousting González would risk provoking the nationalist left wing of their party, the Democratic Revolutionary party, which Torrijos is anxious to keep on board.

Last year, Russia was accused of sabotaging the Estonian government and the country's commercial websites after a row over the relocation of a Soviet war memorial.