Lawyers representing San Juan Senator Felix Bautista, who is accused of corruption and money laundering, have concluded their arguments aimed at persuading the judge of Special Instruction of the Supreme Court of Justice to rule that the evidence presented is inadmissible. They also called for a rejection of the Justice Department’s request for pre-trial detention on the grounds that the senator has sufficient ties to the community, and that his role as a public official requires him to remain in the country.
During the proceedings yesterday, Wednesday 11 February 2015, Juan Antonio Delgado, who was responsible for presenting the conclusions, told Judge Alejandro Moscoso Segarra that as demonstrated by the senator’s attitude during the hearing, he does not have any intention of escaping the process and will appear whenever he is required.
In the 13-point list of conclusions, the lawyer asked the judge to issue a decree of inadmissibility to the penal action on the grounds that it was poorly initiated and badly pursued. He accused the Justice Department of failing to file an indictment with precise incidents, saying that it consisted of simple speculations with procedural errors. He said that the evidence was not consistent with the types of crimes that were being attributed to the defendant. Delgado said that there is a lack of detail in the descriptions of the incidents, which also fail to specify when they took place, are not precise and are based on ramblings, and that the judge should therefore declare that the embezzlement that is being alleged by the prosecution was nonexistent.
Delgado stressed that as the Chamber of Accounts never audited the legality or otherwise of Bautista’s operations during his time at the helm of the Office of Supervising Engineers of State Projects, the accusation of embezzlement from the state has no elements of proof. He also insisted that the facts that support the accusation by the prosecution are “identical” to those that had already been judged by the Supreme Court itself when it took the decision to definitively dismiss the case. In this context, he claims that the Justice Department has violated article 69 of the Constitution that protects the principle of a single accusation, i.e. it prohibits double jeopardy. In his conclusions, Delgado also included a request that the actions taken against the Senator’s assets should be reversed. Justice Department representatives objected on the grounds that this issue did not fall within the remit of these debates. Judge Moscoso Segarra, who declared a recess at that time of the hearing, decided to leave the motion to be decided later.
http://www.listindiario.com/la-republica/2015/2/11/355989/Piden-a-juez-rechazar-solicitud-de-prision-contra-Felix-Bautista