US$2.5B bank fraud convict’s possible release worries prosecutor

Santo Domingo.- The head of the Justice Ministry’s Special Anticorruption Prosecutor on Friday said she’s concerned with the possible release of Baninter bank fraud convict Luis Álvarez Renta’s release and called his incarceration "fair and in adherence to the law and the Constitution."

Laura Guerrero Pelletier said contrary to recent media reports the Justice Ministry’s position has been emphatic in that Álvarez must fulfill the entire 10-year sentence.

"While the Justice Ministry’s Human Rights Unit issued its opinion on humanitarian reasons to let the convict be submitted to a surgery is duly justified by a medical and legal team, it’s never tantamount to an acquiescence of granting pure and simple freedom, neither under this approach, nor under any other allegation or legal technicality," the official said.

Alvarez was convicted of money laundering in the 2003 Baninter bank fraud case, which cost Dominican taxpayers US$2.5 billion.