Former Vice President Rafael Alburquerque says that the requests for the removal of former president of the Senate Andrés Bautista and former Public Works minister Víctor Diaz Rua from the ruling PLD party made based on the case of corruption accusations against these PLD officers are biased. Bautista serves as secretary of the organization and former public works minister and Diaz Rua, who serves as secretary of finances of the party. Alburquerque, served two terms as Vice President under the Leonel Fernandez administration (from 2004 to 2012).
Alburquerque remarked that other high-ranking directors of the party are also included in administrative corruption cases and there have not been petitions levied against them, only against Felix Bautista and Victor Diaz Rua. Diaz Rua was minister of public works during the Fernandez administration. Bautista was director of the Office of Supervision Engineers of Public Works until 2010, when he was elected senator for San Juan de la Maguana.
The former vice president and renowned jurist and university professor said that the PLD cannot punish any leader accused of violating a legal provision, until a final judgment is pronounced against him in a court of law.
He explained that there is a universal principle, confirmed in the Constitution of the Republic and the Code of Criminal Procedures that protects the presumption of innocence of the accused, and that every person is presumed innocent until proven otherwise.
Regarding Bautista, he recalled that he was cleared by the Supreme Court of Justice (SCJ) in a case that the then Attorney General of the Republic Francisco Domínguez Brito, did not appeal. He said it would be necessary to see if it is the Haitian government brings charging against Bautista. Albuquerque said that nothing definitive has come to light thus far, as reported in Hoy.
Alburquerque made his remarks when interviewed by Héctor Herrera Cabral for “D’Agenda” of Channel 11, on Sunday, 17 June 2018.
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Hoy
18 June 2018
