SANTO DOMINGO.- Deputy Attorney General Wilson Camacho trusted that the Sixth Investigating Court of the National District will merge the Coral and Coral 5G administrative corruption cases, as requested by the Public Ministry, because they involve the same facts, people and institutions.
Camacho, head of the Specialized Prosecutor’s Office for the Persecution of Administrative Corruption (Pepca), referred to the issue when responding to the journalists who addressed him at the end of the hearing on Friday night. “We understand that this request must be accepted for the following reasons: it is about the same facts, it is about the same people involved in both Coral and Coral 5G processes, and it is about the same institutions.”
He recalled that “in both cases we are talking about the affectation of Cestur (Specialized Tourist Security Corps), Cusep (Presidential Security Corps) and Conani (National Council for Children and Adolescents)”.
In this sense, the head of Pepca expressed “that there is no reason for a request of this nature, which has been made in law, to be rejected”
He indicated that, even, what the Criminal Procedure Code requires is that the merger request will not delay the process. “In this case, contrary to that, what happens with Coral 5G, is that, in record time, in months, this case has an accusation and the preliminary hearing can be heard, so this request made by the Public Ministry, I repeat, in law, it must be accepted,” he stressed.
“As I have said, the Public Ministry has already submitted the merger request, several defenses have referred, and even some of these defenses have not opposed the request of the Public Ministry, and that must be the correct position when it is done exclusively in right,” he said.
He deplored that the defendants intend to continue trying to delay the process. “We have begun the knowledge of the merger hearing and this hearing has begun despite the attempts of the defenses to continue delaying the process, which made some requests that the Public Ministry opposed and that were rejected by the court. ”, he stated.
At the hearing, which for reasons of space was held in the Chamber of the First Collegiate Court of the National District, Deputy Attorney General Wilson Camacho represented the Public Ministry together with Miguel Collado, Melbin Romero, Emmanuel Ramírez and Jonathan Pérez.
During the hearing, Investigating Judge Yanibet Rivas ratified the decision to reject the exclusion of the plaintiffs as requested by the defense of the accused Adán Cáceres and others who joined.
Judge Rivas postponed the merger of the files and the beginning of the preliminary hearing for next Friday, November 4, starting at 10:00 in the morning.
With the Coral and Coral 5G operations, the Public Ministry filed charges for administrative corruption against 48 people, 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 Army Sergeant Alejandro José Montero Cruz, as well as Army Major Raúl Alejandro Girón Jiménez.
While 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) were arrested and are carrying out coercive measures, as well as the ARD captain, Franklin Mata Flores, and José Manuel Rosario Pirón.
Carlos Lantigua, Alfredo Pichardo, Erasmo Roger Pérez, Jehohanan Lucía Rodríguez, Yehudy Blandesmil Guzmán and Esmeralda Ortega Polanco are also implicated in the case.
