The coordinator of the Presidential Police Reform Committee and executive president of Finjus, Sergio Tulio Castaños urged the government to follow up on complaints presented by Roberto Santana regarding police corruption in national jails. Santana is the presidential advisor on jail reform. Castaños Guzmán urged President Abinader to convene the Attorney General to act on the findings in the recently issued Public Defenders Office on the critical situation in Dominican jails and the recommendations recently made by Santana.
Castaños Guzmán urged the President to convene the Attorney General, the presidential jail advisor, the Minister of Defense, the president of the Chamber of Accounts, and the director of the Public Defenders Office to find an urgent solution to the jail situation.
“The current juncture is not to debate who between the Executive Branch advisor Roberto Santana and the attorney general and Miriam German, is right, but to see what steps must be taken to resolve the prison situation in the country,” said the entity through its spokesman Servio Tulio Castaños Guzman.
He indicated that if, as the attorney general has said, the transfer of the inmates in the La Victoria Penitentiary to the Las Parras complex has not been done due to legal impediments, the Chamber of Accounts is urged to act, “without this meaning an intrusion,” to conclude the special audit of the work already requested.
As for the director of the Police and the minister of the Armed Forces, Finjus said that they should be summoned to the meeting because there are prisons of the old model under the command of members of those institutions.
The civil society entity praised the investigation made by the Public Defender’s Office that laid bare the opprobrious situation prevailing in the country’s prisons.
“Although this situation is known to everyone, it is clear that its public disclosure has revealed that there were other problems and, for this situation, the country may eventually be judged internationally. That is why we say that it is a state issue in which the President of the Republic must intervene,” he pointed out.
After the presentation of the report by the Public Defender’s Office on the prison system, Roberto Santana blamed the state and the Attorney General for failing to tackle the situation and act on proposed solutions. Santana has called for the police to be removed from the administration of the La Victoria jail, the largest in Santo Domingo, alleging big time corruption continues to happen there. He said the situation could be alleviated by using buildings that have been habilitated at the Las Parras (Nueva Victoria) jail complex.
The director of the National Police, Major General Eduardo Alberto Then, nor the Attorney General Miriam German Brito have responded to questions as to the mafia that allegedly operates in the La Victoria Jail. Jails advisor Roberto Santana has openly called for the President to remove the National Police from the La Victoria jail.
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Hoy
30 May 2022