The defense counsel for the Central Bank, made up of lawyers Ramon Pina Acevedo, Artagnan Perez Mendez, Jose Lorenzo Fermin, Carlos Ramon Salcedo and Francisco Benzan publishes a full page advertisement in Hoy and Diario Libre newspapers today calling attention to what is behind lawyers of indicted Baninter banker Ramon Baez Figueroa’s request that the judges suspend their decision until the procedure known as administrative penalization is carried out. The advertisement highlights that Baez Figueroa’s counsel is seeking that their client be tried by the lesser procedure that would mean a maximum penalty of RD$10 million. They say that what the counsel does not explain is that once their client is tried by this procedure, legally he is exempt from a full range trial by the judges Katia Miguelina Jimenez, Esther Agelan Caasnovas and Sergio Ortega who have been handling the case. The lawyers say that this would be “the business deal of the century.” “All of a sudden they would be exchanging a judicial trial of their client in a process that involves more than RD$55 billion in deposits of the Baninter bank and the Central Bank that were fraudulently spent by the co-accused, which could mean penalties of up to 20 years in jail, the confiscation of assets that are in state custody, and the imposition of compensation that could amount to of a sum equal or above the abovementioned figure, for the administrative penalization procedure that would only involve a fine of RD$10 million and probably an administrative warning,” they alert in the advertisement.
The counsel concludes that such a decision in favor of Baez Figueroa would frustrate the legitimate wish for justice in this and other cases in the country and beyond.
The counsel says that the report prepared by four prestigious expert international bankers contracted for this purpose by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the government presents overwhelming and unequivocal proof against Baez Figueroa.
“What is most dangerous is that this [the decision to go for the administrative penalization procedure] would even set a discriminatory and discouraging precedent that penal justice is only for those who break the law who do not have fortunes while bankers and former bankers who infringe the law will only be subject to administrative procedures. Clearly, if this should happen, it would be catastrophic for the legitimacy and the public credibility of our justice system,” state the counsel.