Senator charged with embezzlement challenges prosecutors

Santo Domingo.- Senator Felix Bautista’s lawyers on Wednesday challenged the prosecutors at the pretrial hearing on embezzlement charges lodged against the lawmaker, after the former director of Justice Ministry’s Anticorruption Dept. (DPCA) had dropped the charges.

The defense team for the San Juan province lawmaker headed by Abel Rodriguez del Orbe filed the challenge before Supreme Court special instruction judge Esther Agelán.

On August 13 the group Citizens Movement Against Corruption accused Bautista of irregularities while head of the Governent’s State Works Supervisory Office, a case which the high court had to hear give the senator’s parliamentary immunity.

Rodriguez del Orbe motioned that the former DPCA director has to be in the hearing because he filed the writ to drop the charges against Bautista.

But while the prosecution didn’t object continuance in the case, the attorneys for the plaintiffs motioned against it, claiming that the Justice Ministry’s representatives present are qualified to make the State’s case.