A LEADER of a Panamanian union behind weeks of street protests against social security reforms climbed an embassy wall and requested political asylum from Bolivia on Wednesday.

Hours later, Panamanian prosecutors announced that arrest warrants had been issued in relation to a three-year investigation into the national construction workers union he led. 

Prosecutors did not name the targets of the investigation.

Panama’s Foreign Relations Ministry confirmed that Saul Mendez, the union’s secretary general, had requested asylum.

Bolivia’s business attache in Panama, Carlos Javier Suarez Cornejo, said Mr Mendez had been given temporary protection while they evaluated his case.

A day earlier, the government of President Jose Raul Mulino announced that the union’s legal status had been cancelled because it did not have necessary internal controls.

Another of the union’s leaders, Jaime Caballero, was arrested a week earlier for alleged money laundering.

The union has been a central force in a month of street protests that sometimes blocked major highways. The demands have included scrapping reforms to Panama’s social security system and opposition to a security agreement giving US soldiers and contractors access to facilities in Panama.

Mr Mulino has said the reforms were necessary to keep the social security system solvent and denied that the agreement with the US infringes on Panama’s sovereignty.