The rewarded delationestablished in the Dominican Code of Criminal Procedure (CPP) as a criterion of opportunity, is an agreement that the Public Ministry can reach with a defendant to use him as a witness so that he collaborates in the investigation against the other defendants in a process in exchange of “being awarded”.
Ten years ago, the National District Prosecutor’s Office made a collaboration pact with sobeida felix Morelthe sentimental partner of Figueroa Agosto, who headed a drug trafficking and money laundering network, and, in 2017, the Attorney General’s Office managed it with the executives of the construction company Odebrecht.
Recently, this procedural strategy of the Specialized Prosecution Office for Administrative Corruption (Pepca) is carried out in Operation Medusawhose list of defendants is headed by the former attorney general Jean Alain Rodriguezwho just pushed the deal with Odebrecht in the Dominican courts, which validated it.
To those involved in Operation Medusa he is credited with embezzling the State with more than 6,000 million pesos. The negotiations of the authorities in this file are made with the former director of the Office of the Attorney General, Rafael Stefano Cano Saccowho coordinated “at the national level the initiatives and specialized projects of an administrative, operational and human resources nature”, and with the representative of Jean Alain Rodriguez in the Purchasing and Contracting Committee of the Attorney General’s Office, Víctor Manuel Lora Imbert.
The power of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, as the body entrusted by the Constitution to direct the criminal investigation and exercise public action on behalf of society, to apply the criterion of opportunity is also carried out in the Coral and Coral 5G cases, which lead the former heads of the Presidential Security Corps (Cusep), Major General Adán Cáceres Silvestre, and the Specialized Corps of Tourist Security (Cestur), General Juan Carlos Torres Robiou (FARD).
The arrangement is made with Army Major General Raúl Alejandro Girón Jiménez, who was in charge of Technology at Cusep, and has revealed how the plot worked in which military personnel were appointed to that institution, those who delivered more than 70 percent of their salaries to the leaders of the network, which is attributed to appropriate more than 3,000 million pesos in a corrupt manner.
Girón Jiménez was ordered to house arrest for security reasons, for cooperating with the investigation by the Public Ministry. The other defendants are in pre-trial detention.
The Public Ministry considers the accused with whom it negotiates more important as a witness than as a defendant, because through their testimony they could prove or obtain convictions against the others involved in the criminal process and also recover assets.
Must be approved by the judge
According to article 370 of the CPP, the agreement or the application of the criterion of opportunity to which the accused and the Public Ministry arrive “must be authorized by a sentence of the competent judge or court.
Using this power, in 2017 the Attorney General’s Office, which coincidentally was headed by Jean Alain Rodriguezrequested the Third Court of Instruction of the National District to approve the agreement with the construction company Odebrechtby means of which the Government renounced to prosecute the executives of that company in exchange for information about the bribes that it admitted in the United States that it paid in the country.
The waiver of persecution also implied that the collaboration, which was validated by Judge Danilo Amador Quevedo, implied that Odebrecht pay the country US$184 million, double what it paid officials for “tolls”.
In the agreement with sobeida felix Morel included collaborating in the investigation, giving up assets in exchange for a five-year sentence and that the Prosecutor’s Office would not oppose a request for parole when half the sentence had been served.
Former president of the SCJ does not favor him
Consulted by Diario Libre, the former president of the Supreme Court of Justice Jorge Subero Isa understands that “an arrangement between an accused and the public ministry, mainly in serious acts and corruption, the denunciation should not exempt the accused from prosecution.”
He replied that since it was implemented in the country, the application of the criterion of opportunity has been rejected.
“The denunciation or contribution with the public ministry should not avoid criminal prosecution. The damage caused to society must be punished by all those who have committed it, whether or not they collaborate with the authorities in charge of investigating and prosecuting the crime”, considers Subero Isa.
What the CPP establishes
Paragraph 6 of article 370 of the Code of Criminal Procedure establishes, in the procedures of complex cases, that the public ministry may request “the application of a criterion of opportunity if the accused collaborates effectively with the investigation, provides essential information to avoid criminal activity or that other infractions are perpetrated, help to clarify the fact under investigation or other related ones or provide useful information to prove the participation of other defendants, provided that the criminal action which is dispensed with is considerably lighter than the punishable acts whose prosecution facilitates or whose continuation prevents. In this case, the application of the opportunity criterion must be authorized by a sentence of the competent judge or court”.
