INDEPENDENCE.- The judge of the Court of the Instruction of Independence, Paco Terrero Pérez, ratified this Monday the preventive detention of Deivi Nova Reyes, accused of trafficking immigrants in the Iguana Case.
The magistrate ordered, during the mandatory review, to maintain the measure against Nova Reyes, a former employee of the National Institute of Drinking Water and Sewerage (Inapa), who is serving prison in the Neiba public prison, in the Bahoruco province.
At the hearing, it was also planned to review the coercion of the accused Quelinton Eduardo Vólquez Guzmán, postponed for next October 4 so that he can be assisted by a lawyer.
The case also involves the defendants Roberto Méndez Pérez, who served as control coordinator at the Customs border post in Jimaní, and the inspector of that agency, Johan Rosario Castillo, as well as Delson Manuel Medina Díaz and Juan Mateo Feliciano (Yefo). , who also serve preventive detention since last March in the aforementioned prison by order of the same Court of Instruction.
In addition, Dominga Guzmán is prosecuted, who was required to appear periodically before the Public Ministry.
Prosecutor Aleika Almonte, from the Specialized Prosecutor’s Office Against Illicit Smuggling of Migrants and Trafficking in Persons (PETT), assured that the Public Ministry combats the crime of trafficking and human trafficking with extended investigations with which it confronts criminal organizations, as happens with the cases derived from the Iguana and Cattleya operations.
In the Cattleya case, he said, the stage of trial advances in the Gesell Chamber is exhausted, which are investigative procedural steps that the Public Ministry can carry out at any time, prior to the deposit of the final act.
“In the Cattleya case, as guarantor of the effective judicial protection of the victims, we urgently request, without delay, the interviews in the Gesell Chamber of the victims of trafficking that the Public Ministry rescued, with the firm intention that these victims proceed, if they so wished, as is the case with the majority, to voluntary return to their respective countries,” said prosecutor Aleika Almonte.
“We regret that the lawyers of the defendants may confuse some communicators, but we must be clear that the Public Ministry, in Cattleya as in other cases, does not base the processes or support its investigations for human trafficking in the presence or not of the police. victims, not even in their testimonies,” he said.
“In fact, that is why proactive investigations are carried out, using the tools that the law provides and it takes a year, and sometimes up to two, to investigate, to have solid investigations that do not depend on the testimony or not of the victims,” he said.
The PETT prosecutor recalled that the Palermo International Convention and the Belém do Pará Convention protect victims from public exposure because, “it is not a condition or a requirement of the norm that in these crimes the victims make an appearance in public. procedural acts, for example, hearings”.
