SANTO DOMINGO. – The prosecutor Rosa Alba García highlighted this Monday that 14 of the 20 accused in Operation Squid had reached agreements with the Public Ministry on the measure of coercion to be imposed and specified that the justice body has presented the elements to the court to be imposed preventive detention on the remaining six defendants, as requested.
“Due to the forcefulness of the evidence that supports this request for a measure of coercion, 14 of the defendants have agreed with the Public Ministry on the measure of coercion to be imposed,” said the prosecutor of the Special Prosecutor’s Office for the Persecution of Administrative Corruption (Pepca ).
Alba García, who is part of the team that was present at the hearing on Monday, made up of the deputy attorney director of Persecution, Yeni Berenice Reynoso, the deputy attorney and head of Pepca, Wilson Camacho, as well as the prosecutors Miguel Crucey, Miguel Collado, Rosa Ysabel, Melbin Romero Suazo, Arolin Lemos, Elvira Rodríguez, Héctor García, Marinel Brea, Andrés Mena, and Jhensy Víctor, was confident that the other defendants will receive the measure of coercion requested before the court.
“The Public Ministry understands that all the conditions are met for the request to be accepted regarding what we have raised from the six defendants who have not agreed with the Public Ministry on the imposition of the measure of coercion,” she specified.
Alba García explained that among the defendants who have not agreed to a measure of coercion with the Public Ministry are the former Minister of Finance, Donald Guerrero; former administrative minister of the presidency, José Ramón Peralta; former Minister of Public Works, Gonzalo Castillo; former Comptroller General of the Republic, Daniel Omar Caamaño; the former director of the State Sugar Council (CEA), Luis Miguel Piccirilo and Aldo Antonio Gerbasi.
As for the defendants who have admitted their participation in this corrupt structure and reached an agreement with the justice system, they include the former director of the National Cadastre, Claudio Silver Peña, the former directors of Casinos and Gambling, Oscar Chalas Guerrero and Julián Omar Fernández, Ángel Lockward, Alejandro Constanzo, Roberto Santiago Moquete, Marcial Reyes, Ana Linda Fernández, Emir Fernández de Paola, Oscar Chalas Guerrero, Rafael Parmenio Rodríguez, Agustín Mejía Ávila, and Víctor Matías Encarnación.
As well as Yahaira Brito Encarnación and Ramón David Hernández.
Regarding what happened in the hearing this Monday, the litigant of the Public Ministry explained that the court completed the coercion measure against the 20 defendants in the Operación Squid case and withdrew to deliberate until this Tuesday at 10 in the morning. When Judge Kenya Romero, coordinator of the Investigating Courts of the National District, will announce the ruling.
The magistrate also scheduled for 3:00 the afternoon this Tuesday the reading of the ruling for the accused, Ana Linda Fernández.
The file presented by the Public Ministry has more than three thousand pages and more than 1,200 pieces of evidence, which detail how the members of this network stole more than 17 billion pesos from the State for expropriations, which added to some 2,100 million in administrative debt total more than 19 billion.
The initial accusation of the Public Prosecutor’s Office against those arrested includes conduct typified in article 146 of the Constitution of the Republic, as well as articles 123, 166, 171, 172, 174, 175, 177, 265, 266, and 405 of the Penal Code.
Also, violations of Laws 448-06 and 311-14, in addition to Law 155-17, against Money Laundering and the Financing of Terrorism and Law 33-18, on Political Parties, Groups, and Movements.
