The Special Prosecutor’s Office for the Prosecution of Administrative Corruption (Pepca) has asked the Supreme Court to appoint a special judge to oversee the investigation into corruption and other crimes by the Public Ministry against members of the Plenary Chamber of Accounts (CC).
Wilson Camacho, the head of Pepca, asked the President of the Supreme Court, Luis Henry Molina, to appoint a judge to hear the preliminary charges against Hugo Francisco Álvarez Pérez, Pedro Antonio Ortiz Hernández, Carlos Noés Tejada Díaz, Margarita Melenciano Corporán and Félix Álvarez Rivera, who have the privilege of jurisdiction.
The group of officials is being provisionally investigated for obstructing justice, in violation of Article 12 of Law 133-11.
The investigation of the Public Ministry also includes other members of the state inspection body.
Similarly, the Public Ministry claims that the acts of CC members constitute crimes such as a coalition of officials, forgery of public documents, association of criminals, complicity in embezzlement, fraud against the state and money laundering from acts of corruption.
The court brought by Pepca, before the secretariat of the Supreme Court, established that the investigated persons have the privilege of jurisdiction protected by Article 154, number 1, of the Constitution of the Dominican Republic and Articles 378 and 379 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
The duties of a trial investigator must be performed by a judge of the Court of Appeal or the Supreme Court of Justice, specially appointed by the president of that body, says Pepca.
The court stated that Pepca sent several requests for information to the CC, “to which they received no answers, without any valid justification, other than to act fraudulently to prevent the fulfillment of the functions of the Public Ministry, a public body system of criminal prosecution. the justice responsible for the formulation and implementation of the state policy against crime ”.
Likewise, the Prosecutor’s Office claimed that it has evidence that those investigated “keep the evidence necessary for the investigation, but are under their power and refuse to hand them over”, reason for which “they continue to obstruct justice”.