Judge Yanibeth Rivas, of the Sixth Investigating Court, postponed until September 2 the audience for the knowledge of the merger of the Coral and Coral 5G cases, in the face of the manifest opposition of the defense attorneys.
Likewise, it set for the 9th of the same month the beginning of the audience preliminary of both in which those involved are accused of embezzling the Dominican State from the institutions of the Presidential Security Corps (Cusep), led by Adán Cáceres; and through the Specialized Center for Tourist Security (Cestur), directed by Juan Carlos Torres Robiou.
The postponement decision was given because four companies involved in the files did not send lawyers, for which the Public Ministry requested that a public defender be assigned in the next court session.
Several defense lawyers have opposed this Friday the request of the Public Ministry that the case be unified.
The lawyer of Félix Portes, defender of the defendant, Rafael Núñez de Aza, expressed the merger of the cases is not appropriate and delays the process.
In any case, Portes indicated that they will be given the opportunity to study the file to find out if there really are delays.
“We are going to request the separation of the trial, because here the citizenry has been sold a theory of two processes, which is the coral case and the 5G Coral, two totally different processes and with a different analogy and classification of each of the co-defendants,” said the lawyer, Waldo Paulino, legal representative of General Boanerges Reyes Batista and Franklin Antonio Mata Flores.
At the end of the audiencethe representative of the Public Ministry, Yeni Berenice Reynoso, Deputy Attorney General and Director of Prosecution, left the Palace of Justice and refused to talk to the press.
With the Coral and Coral 5G operations, the prosecution body filed charges for alleged administrative corruption against 48 defendants, 30 individuals and 18 legal entities, accused of defrauding the Dominican State with more than 4,000 million pesos.
Among those accused of Operation Coral are Major General Adán Cáceres Silvestre, Rossy Guzmán Sánchez (La Pastora), police corporal Tanner Antonio Flete Guzmán (son of the nun), police colonel Rafael Núñez de Aza and Navy sergeant Alejandro José Montero Cruz, as well as Army Major Raúl Alejandro Girón Jiménez.
In Operation Coral 5G, derived from the Coral, Generals Juan Carlos Torres Robiou (FARD), Boanerges Reyes Batista (ARD) and Julio Camilo de los Santos Viola (FARD), as well as Navy Captain Franklin Mata Flores and Jose Manuel Rosario Piron.
Carlos Lantigua, Alfredo Pichardo, Erasmo Roger Pérez, Jehohanan Lucía Rodríguez, Yehudy Blandesmil Guzmán and Esmeralda Ortega Polanco are also implicated in the case.
