The Superior Council of the Public Prosecutor’s Office called for the suspending of prosecutor Engels Luis Polanco Henríquez and the court attorney Antonio de Jesús Báez Tapia for incurring in “serious” and “very serious” faults. The Attorney General investigations follow general public indignation after the decisions of the prosecutors benefiting the accused were made known.
Polanco Henríquez had authorized the release on bail of 41-year old Eusebio Rosario Hernandez (Eddy) accused of the murder of 26-year old Carmen Paulino Gabriel (Rafelina), occurred in San Francisco de Macoris in June 2021. The body was found with around 300 knife injuries in a water cistern.
Antonio de Jesus Baez Tapia is accused of filing away the case of the implantation of drugs in a barbershop in Villa Vasquez, Montecristi.
Deputy attorney general Juan Medina de los Santos, who is the Attorney General Office inspector general, presented the requests for the suspensions to Attorney General Miriam German Brito and the other members of the Superior Council of the Public Prosecutor’s Office.
“Engels Luis Polanco Henriquez has exercised his functions improperly by failing to comply with the obligations or duties proper to his position and incurring in serious and very serious misconduct by carrying out acts that seriously affect the institution of the Public Ministry,” the Attorney General explains in a press release.
In the Polanco Henriquez case, inspector Medina de los Santos pointed out that the 12-month term for the preventive detention was due to expire on 7 June 2022, “so it is not justified for the prosecutor to request the variation of the coercive measure, due to the expiration of a term that had not yet expired, especially in a case as serious as the one we are dealing with.”
As for the court attorney of Montecristi, Antonio de Jesús Báez Tapia, inspector Medina de los Santos requested the suspension for the latter failing to comply with the obligations or duties of his position and incurring in serious and very serious faults by carrying out acts which seriously affect the institution.
Medina de los Santos states that Baez Tapia incurred in a violation of the Organic Law of the Public Ministry (number 133-11), for “not observing the constitutional or legal prohibitions or incompatibilities when the fact or omission has serious consequences for the citizens or the State,” for having neglected the file and the process followed against the former prosecutor Carmen Lisset Nunez Peña.
Baez Tapia had also dropped the charges against Major Victor Ignacio Encarnacion Cuevas, Captain Juan de Dios Heredia Martinez and Corporal Adan Mauricio Rodriguez Pichardo, of the National Police and assigned to the National Drug Control Agency (DNCD), as well as against Air Force Corporal Juan Antonio Arias Peguero.
The former inspector and the four anti-narcotics agents are prosecuted for implanting drugs in the raid of a hairdresser’s shop located in Villa Vásquez, in August 2019, an event that was recorded in a barbershop video that went viral.
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El Dia
24 May 2022