SANTO DOMINGO. – Judge Rigoberto Sena Ferreras imposed 18 months of preventive detention on Santiago Marcelo F. Hazim Albainy, former director of SeNaSa , on Sunday night, December 14, as part of Operation Cobra, through which 10 people have been arrested so far for allegedly embezzling more than 15 billion pesos from the Dominican State.
Deputy Attorney General Wilson Camacho , head of the Public Ministry's Directorate General for Prosecution, also indicated that the prosecuting body will seek to present, in the shortest possible time, version 2.0 of Operation Cobra, with which it will proceed to bring to justice other natural and legal persons involved in the fraud.
In addition, measures were taken to imprison Gustavo Enrique Messina Cruz, Francisco Iván Minaya Pérez, Germán Rafael Robles Quiñones, Rafael Luis Martínez Hazim, Ada Ledesma Ubiera and Ramón Alan Speakler Mateo.
For the defendants Cinty Acosta Sención, Heidi Mariela Pineda Perdomo and Eduardo Read Estrella, the judge imposed house arrest, economic guarantees and a ban on leaving the country, the Attorney General's press release highlights.
Wilson Camacho represented the Public Ministry along with the court prosecutor Mirna Ortiz, head of the Specialized Prosecutor's Office for the Prosecution of Administrative Corruption (Pepca), as well as the prosecutors Rosa Alba García, Enmanuel Ramírez, Yudelka Holguín, Alexis Piña, Ernesto Guzmán and Aurelio Valdez.
“It is a historic decision that this court has made and that it has based fundamentally on three elements: one of those elements has been the seriousness of the events that the judge has recognized and that, even, has described them as cruel and very serious , has understood them as a betrayal , has called them a collective madness and has even compared them to a form of holocaust , understanding what the Public Prosecutor stated that these are extremely serious events,” Camacho said.
“The second element that the court took into account was the strength of the Public Prosecutor's investigation , which it recognized and used as a basis for its decision, even citing documents and testimonies presented by the Public Prosecutor,” he emphasized.
“The third thing was that (the judge) valued the collaboration that was given to the Public Prosecutor's Office and on that basis ordered preventive detention for seven of the defendants and sent them to Najayo Men and Najayo Women, respectively; and house arrest and economic guarantees and impediment of leaving for three others,” he indicated.
“Generally speaking, the ten defendants presented in this process are deprived of their liberty,” Camacho said, when approached by journalists covering the hearing on Sunday night.
In that context, he explained that from now on the Public Prosecutor's Office is preparing to "do everything within our power to ensure that all these people answer in the dock for the atrocious acts they have committed, and secondly, the lawyers will work day and night as we always do, without rest, to present version 2.0 of this case in the shortest possible time.".
The Public Prosecutor's Office reaffirms its status as an independent body and reiterates that anyone who stole public assets will be prosecuted.
