Alcatel Chief Freed From Jail
One by one, those implicated in the ICE-Alcatel scandal are going home.

This week, Edgar Valverde, the president of Alcatel Costa Rica was released from nine months of preventive detention (jail) after paying ¢150 million colones (some us$319.000) bail set by the Tribunal del II Circuito de San José and giving him house arrest.

According to court records, Valverde mortgage several properties to make bail.

In addition to house arrest, Valverde is not to talk to the others implicated in the case, which include former president Miguel Angel Rodríguez. The former Alcatel chief has had to surrender his passport and is to appear at the court house every 15 days to sign in, along with signing the daily registry by the Fuerza Publica officer posted outside of his house.

Valverde had been kept at the San Sebastián prison in San José following a series of raids by the Organismo de Investigación Judicial(OIJ) at the man's home, office and confiscating documents and computers.

The investigation began when former Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE) director José Antonio Lobo, who is currently under house arrest, told prosecutors of the payment of the "premio gordo" - the big prize - following the awarding of the multimillion dollar contract by ICE to Alcatel to install 400.000 cellular lines of the current GSM network.

Lobo, in his story, told prosecutors that a us$2.5 million dollar commission was paid and that former president Rodríguez had demanded a 60% cut from the French telecommunications company after having gotten the contract.