NewsWhore
12-23-2008, 03:00 PM
President Leonel Fernandez used his constitutional right to pardon Baninter banker Vivian Lubrano de Castillo, exempting her from serving a five-year jail sentence. She had been found guilty of a part in the RD$55 billion Baninter fraud. Fellow bankers Ramon Baez Figueroa, financier Luis Alvarez Renta and former bank operations executive Marcos Baez Cocco are serving 10-year sentences for their roles in the crime. Lubrano has been hospitalized ever since the sentence was first served on 11 July. She appealed, but the Supreme Court of Justice upheld the sentence.
Likewise, President Leonel Fernandez ended the jail sentences for Casimiro Antonio Marte Familia (Conatra), Pedro Franco Badia, Milciades Amaro Guzman (Terrabus) and Gervasio de la Rosa, of the Plan Renove scandal, which involved the purchase of public transport vehicles with state funds.
Franco Badia had been under arrest on the grounds of health problems.
The pardon is contained in Decree 847-08 issued by the President. After the pardon was announced, journalist Huchi Lora and Nuria Piera resigned from the Presidential pardon commission in protest. Lora said that last week they had discussed a list of recommendations for the pardons with the Prosecutor General and neither Lubrano nor the Renove detainees were on the list, as reported in Diario Libre.
The General Controller of the Nation prepared a report on the Renove fraud, and the State Prosecutors stressed that of the 4,415 vehicles imported under the program, only 418 were distributed to the true public transporters leaving taxpayers to pay millions in foreign debt that the government took on to purchase the units. On Monday, President Fernandez appointed another transport kingpin, Alfredo Pulinario Linares (Cambita) as transport advisor to the President. He was also charged in the Plan Renove scandal. Linares represents the MOCHOTRAN transport consortium.
More... (http://www.dr1.com/index.html#9)
Likewise, President Leonel Fernandez ended the jail sentences for Casimiro Antonio Marte Familia (Conatra), Pedro Franco Badia, Milciades Amaro Guzman (Terrabus) and Gervasio de la Rosa, of the Plan Renove scandal, which involved the purchase of public transport vehicles with state funds.
Franco Badia had been under arrest on the grounds of health problems.
The pardon is contained in Decree 847-08 issued by the President. After the pardon was announced, journalist Huchi Lora and Nuria Piera resigned from the Presidential pardon commission in protest. Lora said that last week they had discussed a list of recommendations for the pardons with the Prosecutor General and neither Lubrano nor the Renove detainees were on the list, as reported in Diario Libre.
The General Controller of the Nation prepared a report on the Renove fraud, and the State Prosecutors stressed that of the 4,415 vehicles imported under the program, only 418 were distributed to the true public transporters leaving taxpayers to pay millions in foreign debt that the government took on to purchase the units. On Monday, President Fernandez appointed another transport kingpin, Alfredo Pulinario Linares (Cambita) as transport advisor to the President. He was also charged in the Plan Renove scandal. Linares represents the MOCHOTRAN transport consortium.
More... (http://www.dr1.com/index.html#9)