A feature in Hoy captures the most asked question by the seven that made it to the final hearing from a short list of 14 accused by the Attorney General Office’s of taking bribes for US$92 million that executives of the Brazilian construction firm Odebrecht admitted to paying for securing contract work in the Dominican Republic.
Presiding Judge Francisco Ortega Polanco is hearing this week the defense statements by the seven accused after presenting the accusations in court during the past two weeks. None of the accused is in jail.
In the hearing on Monday, 11 February, Carlos Salcedo, the defense of former president of the Senate Andrés Bautista García, a higher up member of the PRM opposition party, criticized that the prosecutors removed the president of the Senate Reinaldo Pared Perez (PLD-National District) from the case when the latter has more ties to the Odebrecht contracts than his client.
Salcedo explained on Monday that of the 16 contracts approved from 2010 to 2016 by the Senate that benefited Odebrecht, 13 were approved with Reinaldo Pared Pérez acting as president of the Senate. He said that Pared Pérez presided over the Senate that approved more than US$3 billion in contract work, while Bautista presided over the approval of about US$266 million.
Salcedo also argued that it is not true that Bautista influenced the approval of Pinalito dam’s financing on 6 January 2007, nor Palomino and the aqueduct of Samaná on 29 May 2007, because on those dates he was not president of the Senate or member of the Finance Committee or attended those sessions, and that the president of the Senate at the time was Reinaldo Pared Pérez.
Pared Pérez was president of the Senate twice, between 2006 and 2014, and since 2016. A high-ranking member of the ruling Dominican Liberation Party, he was named general-secretary in 2001 and continues in the position. Pared Pérez is also a pre-candidate for the PLD presidential candidacy in the 2020 general election.
State prosecutors argued that since Pared Pérez was not being tried, the arguments should not be allowed. The opinion was overturned by Judge Ortega.
Read more in Spanish:
Hoy
El Caribe
El Nacional
Listin Diario
12 February 2019
