The accused in Baninter’s RD$55-billion fraud case, former bank president Ramon Baez Figueroa, will seek release on bail on the grounds that the Constitution grants him the right to liberty, following the issue of Resolution 1920-03 on Monday. Juan Antonio Delgado, of the Baninter legal defense team, said that both Baez Figueroa and Marcos Baez Cocco have been in preventive custody for six months now, and that a bail agreement should be reached. Nonetheless, the two are in prison under suspicion of violating the law on money laundering, which precludes the right to bail. Their lawyer, however, maintains that this charge still needs to be proven by the prosecutors, and that the citizen’s constitutional right to freedom should take precedence. Delgado said that according to the new penal code, bail can only be denied when there is a flight risk. Baninter’s legal team is also objecting to the designation of Luis Emilio Aurich as an expert witness in the case, due to conflict of interests. According to full-page paid advertisements in today’s newspapers, Aurich’s wife is a former Baninter operations executive who was dismissed following a disagreement with her immediate boss, Marcos Baez Cocco.