Odebrecht case: Judge’s recusal would bring ‘disaster and chaos’

Santo Domingo.- Anticorruption prosecutor Laura Guerrero Pelletier on Wed. reiterated her warning to the Supreme Court justices over the judges assigned to the Odebrecht case, noting that if they accept the recusal against Francisco Ortega, they would create “disaster and chaos,” since the magistrates of the Penal Chamber could not hear it either.

“Understand that in that sense we would practically be with judges who wouldn’t know who they’d be and possibly would be sought to be judges favorable to the situation of the accused,” Guerrero said in a press conference.

Judge’s challenge

Ortega has yet to state whether he accepts or rejects the challenges filed against his permanence in the Odebrecht case.

“Although the Code of Criminal Procedure establishes in its article 82 that the judge to admit or reject the recusal must send a report explaining the reasons for which he made the decision, the magistrate does not say so in his reports,” several judges told Diario Libre separately.