The Superior Administrative Court (TSA) will announce this Wednesday whether the former Attorney General of the Republic is right or wrong, Jean-Alain Rodríguez in his request that the news linking his name with the nickname be removed from the media “jellyfish”, a term given by the Public Ministry to the anti-corruption operation of which he is designated as the leader.
The deputy prosecutor, Wilson Camacho, was confident that the request made by the former official will be rejected by the judges of TSA, as requested by the Public Ministry. And he referred that there is already a final judgment of the Constitutional Court that has set a precedent protecting the media.
“The work carried out by the press and the information handled by the press, the Constitutional Court has already referred to that. There is a firm decision that binds all State bodies, and even the Public Ministry,” Camacho replied when asked by journalists.
The head of the Specialized Prosecution Office of the Corruption Administrative (Pepca), expressed that this institution will not rest a single day in persecuting “officials who prey on the public treasury.”
In the past week Jean-Alain Rodríguez filed an amparo appeal, requesting before the TSA to order Pepca to reestablish his rights through a “formal apology and public and express rectification.” It also wants all news published on the news portal of the Attorney General’s Office (PGR) to be removed, as well as in traditional digital and printed media, so that “all digital searches for the word jellyfish does not lead to a relationship with the name of the petitioner (Jean-Alain Rodriguez)”.
The former prosecutor also requested that the Public Ministry be ordered to refrain from using “such vexatious expressions or others that are disproportionate and unnecessary” to refer to Jean-Alain Rodriguez. They consider that this violates their presumption of innocence, and other fundamental rights.
Case jellyfish
According to the accusation of the Public Ministry, Jean-Alain Rodriguez and other co-defendants were part of a criminal network of corruption that he operated from the Attorney General’s Office and that, according to preliminary estimates, he swindled the Dominican State out of more than six billion pesos.
Along with the former prosecutor, the co-defendants Alfredo Alexander Solano Augusto, Javier Alejandro Forteza Ibarra and Jonnathan Joel Rodríguez Imbert are in preventive detention.
Also appearing in the case are Rafael Antonio Mercede Marte, Jenny Marte Peña and Altagracia Guillén Calzado, who are under house arrest, and Miguel José Moya, who was imposed an economic guarantee of RD$1 million in the form of a contract.
Rafael Stefano Canó Sacco, the former chief of staff of attorney Rodríguez, and who was arrested in Spain, is in the process of extradition.