A fourth pro-government party leader charged with embezzlement

Santo Domingo.- The Justice Ministry on Thursday charged former National Properties Agency (BN) director Elias Wessin Chavez of embezzling more than RD$157.0 million, based on an Accounts Chamber audit of his tenure.

Wessin Chavez becomes the fourth senior leader of Dominican Republic’s pro-government coalition including his PQD party to be indicted on embezzlement, after senator Amable Aristy; former Agrarian Reform Institute (IAD) director Hector Rodriguez Pimentel, and former ambassador in Colombia, Angel Lockwardand, of the PRSC .

Also indicted were deputy director José Jacobo De Leon Garrido and Elvin Leonor Arias Morban, of the PQD.

The indictment says the evidence led to charges of malfeasance, embezzlement and conspiracy, punishable by several articles of the Penal Code.

The Justice Ministry requested a pretrial hearing to unseal the indictment listing the charges of embezzling taxpayers money.

It said pursuant to the Criminal Procedural Code, the prosecution will motion for incarceration of the defendants for the duration of the proceedings, “taking into account the gravity of the acts attributed to each of the accused.”

Wessin Chavez calls the charges lies

"I have nothing to repent for in the five years I was at National Properties. We left that institution modern and sound, with all the technological changes, and a modernization of all internal procedures," Wessin Chavez said by telephone Thursday night, quoted by listindiario.com.do.