Santo Domingo.- Calling the judicial processes in the Baninter and Plan Renove fraud cases the exception in Dominican Republic’s atmosphere of impunity, the U.S. State Department criticized president Leonel Fernandez's pardons of Vivian Lubrano and those implicated in the vehicle purchase program.

“The Government doesn’t implement the law efficiently and the officials involved in corruption practices do so with impunity,” said the U.S. government in its report for 2008, given to the U.S. Congress Wednesday.

In fact the report states that the authorities seem reluctant “to seriously investigate and prepare cases to take them to trial when previous or current officials are involved. In those cases that went go trial there was a bit of success in obtaining prison sentences.”

However the document notes two exceptions in which processes against corruption cases did reach the courts and sentences were obtained: the trial against the four implicated in the US$2.5 billion fraud in the collapsed bank Baninter, and in the Plan Renove RD$1.8 billion fraud.

After stressing that civil society considered the Baninter trial a great challenge against impunity, the State Department noted that on December 22 Fernandez pardoned Lubrano, sentenced to five years in prison, and four in the Plan Renove case.

The State Department added that as a result of the presidential pardons, “the majority of the members of the Pardons Commission resigned in protest.”