The website (http://www.asamblea.gob.pa/) of Panama's National Assembly has been out of action since 9 January after hackers briefly posted the US flag there.

According to Reuters, unnamed officials accordingly suspect the attack may have come from the US, possibly provoked by the election to the legislature's presidency last September of Pedro Miguel Gonzalez - wanted in the States for the 1992 murder of US Army Sergeant Zac Hernandez.

The US strongly opposed Gonzalez's candidature, and high-profile politicians including Hillary Clinton have "vowed not to ratify a pending free trade deal with Panama unless Gonzalez is removed from his post".

Suspicions that US hackers are behind the cyber invasion are reinforced by the fact that the assault came on Panama's "Martyrs' Day", on which the country remembers the deaths of roughly 20 people in 1964 in clashes between anti-US protesters and American soldiers protecting the Panama Canal Zone. ®

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