By The Star Staff
Justice Secretary Domingo Emanuelli Hernández appeared Thursday, under penalty of contempt, at a joint executive hearing of the committees on Community Initiatives, Mental Health and Addiction; and Legal Affairs and Economic Development in the island Senate.
The secretary was summoned before both committees to continue the investigation stemming from Senate Resolution 933, authored by the committee chairmen, Sen. José Vargas Vidot and Senate President José Luis Dalmau Santiago, respectively, to investigate the administrative management leading to the release of prisoners under Law 25-1992 and after the events involving inmate Hermes Ávila Vázquez.
Ávila Vázquez, who was convicted of murder in 2005, was released from prison under an early release program that allows inmates to leave jail if they suffer certain terminal conditions. However, after he was released, he killed Ivette Joan Meléndez Vega in Manatí earlier this year, according to his own confession. Ávila Vázquez had been diagnosed as paraplegic even though, as it turned out, he could walk. Since then, the Corrections and Rehabilitation Department has been under investigation for allowing his release.
The Senate president held the government responsible for the need to call a joint hearing, since Emanuelli Hernández is the third secretary to be summoned under penalty of contempt during the investigation; previously, it had been the secretaries of the Health, Carlos Mellado López, and Correction and Rehabilitation, Ana Escobar Pabón.
“It has been very difficult to request documents that are public, we have had to go to court,” Dalmau Santiago said.
After not appearing at the initial summons, the Justice secretary directly asked the Senate president to testify through an executive hearing, “because he did not want to go into the specific facts of the investigation,” Dalmau Santiago said, to which both committees agreed.
“In no way can we intervene in an investigation that another agency is doing, but the Resolution that was approved by the majority in this Senate gives the authorization to both commissions to act based on that resolution and an investigation,” the Senate president added.
Vargas Vidot noted that the interpretation of Law 25 of 1992 and the case of the former prisoner cannot be set aside since, “this resolution does not occur in a vacuum, but rather it was born after the murder [of Meléndez Vega] committed by Hermes Ávila when he was released under Law 25.”
He pointed out that “It was the secretary of Justice himself who on June 25 said that the report from his office [of the investigation of Hermes Ávila] would be ready on September 15,” a situation that he did not comply with and for which he was summoned.
Before Emanuelli Hernández appeared before the joint hearing under penalty of contempt, Vargas Vidot said “I don’t want to think that the routine legislative process is being deviated from because we are just months away from the election.”
Upon leaving the joint hearing, senators in attendance expressed dissatisfaction with the answers given by Emanuelli Hernández.
“At this hearing, absolutely nothing was said that the people of Puerto Rico could not hear,” Sen. Rafael Bernabe Riefkohl said. “There was no reason to hold an executive hearing.”
Prior to the joint hearing, Emanuelli Hernández had said he has the legal and ethical duty to ensure investigations are conducted in an objective, honest, and trustworthy manner.
“It is universally known that criminal investigations must be conducted confidentially to comply with these principles and ensure a truthful, accurate, and fair result,” he said. “What public purpose can a secretary of Justice have for publicly airing an investigative process of a criminal nature that has not been concluded?”
The subpoena, issued Monday by the committee chaired by Vargas Vidot, specifically stated that the purpose of the original hearing called for Thursday was to discuss “the facts related to Mr. Hermes Ávila Vázquez, accused of the femicide of Ivette Joan Meléndez Vega in the early hours of April 21, 2024 in the town of Manatí.”
“Given this, we had to responsibly decline to appear,” Emanuelli Hernández said. “As I confirmed yesterday, the process led by the Public Integrity Division of the Department of Justice regarding the release of the convict Hermes Ávila Vázquez is in its final stage.”
In response to this, Vargas Vidot said that “basically what Emanuelli says is that, ultimately, it is up to the secretary’s discretion, that is, whenever he wants” to come to a hearing in the Senate.
Comments