SANTO DOMINGO .– Court prosecutor
Mirna Ortiz, head of the Specialized Prosecutor's Office for the Prosecution of Administrative Corruption
(Pepca), stated this Monday that the Public Ministry will not tolerate acts against the law and, in that sense, called on citizens to report any act committed against public property.
"The most important thing we have to add in this regard is the fact that the Public Ministry will not tolerate any type of conduct that is against the law," Ortiz emphasized when answering questions from the press about the process opened against prosecutor Aurelio Valdez Alcántara, accused of receiving $10,000 from a person under investigation.
Regarding that process, he said that "it is a particular case of a person that does not define at all the performance of men and women who day by day get up to work with vocation, with the hope of building a better society for the Dominican Republic."
Regarding questions from the press about the cases the prosecutor has worked on, he indicated that they are proceeding normally. "As you (the journalists) may notice, no prosecutor handles a case in a particular or isolated way; all cases are worked on in groups or teams of prosecutors, task forces, and all prosecutors have equal knowledge and control of the case. Therefore, there is no danger in any type of investigation that is underway."
He called on citizens to report: "What we do urge every citizen, every person who has knowledge of an act against the law, committed by a public official, in whatever institution it may be, is to report it, because that is the only way we can eliminate any act of corruption that goes against the public patrimony and the good name of the Dominican Republic," he insisted.
Ortiz offered her statements when approached by journalists from different media outlets during a recess of the preliminary hearing known in the Sixth Instruction Court of the National District against those accused of administrative corruption Hugo Beras, José Ángel (Jochi) Gómez Canaán and others.
The Public Ministry requested on Sunday against Valdez Alcántara the imposition of one year of preventive prison as a coercive measure.