Santo Domingo, RD.
Marcelo Hofke, who will appear as a witness before the court hearing the Odebrecht case, lacks the quality to prove the agreement between the Brazilian construction company and the Dominican Public Prosecution Service, as his signature is not on that document.
The approach is supported by the defendants’ technical defense in the trial, known to the First Collegiate Court of the National District, which detracts from the contributions Hofke can make.
They stated that in 2017 Hofke – under questioning by the prosecution – stated that one of the suspects in the case, Ángel Rondón Rijo, was an Odebrecht commercial representative in the country and not a person acting as an intermediary to distribute bribes.
“We are not aware of the payment of bribes, nor of the name of the person who has acted as an intermediary for such purposes … what we recognize is that we have hired a commercial representative in the Dominican Republic, who is our representation has pursued through their companies, Mr. Ángel Rondón Rijo. “
This is how Hofke expressed himself during the interrogation on January 10, 2017 at 11:30 am, signed by then-lawyer Jean Alain Rodríguez and Laura Guerrero Pelletier, then director of the Special Public Prosecutor’s Office for the prosecution of administrative corruption (Pepca).
The document, which records Hofke’s claim that “payments were made for services rendered in the period from 2001 to the present,” was also signed by lawyers Robert Valdez, María Eugenia Batista, and himself. declarant.
Despite everything, the Public Prosecution Service calls Hofke a key witness in the trial and documents the following about him: “With the statements of this witness, his intervention in the Odebrecht agreement with the Dominican Public Prosecution Service, as well as any other circumstance, will be in court. proven. this is useful for clarifying the facts. “