Assistant Attorney General Frank Soto has found many irregularities in the processing of passports at the Ministry of Foreign Relations. He stated that the entire passport department in the Ministry is under investigation and its personnel are being questioned about these alleged irregularities. He stated that Alfredo Pereyra, who is being held at La Victoria prison, was able to withdraw approximately 50 passports and his department wants to know why the Ministry would deliver that many documents to just one person. Soto indicated that almost none of the passports were signed by the person they were issued to, because they were delivered to other people. He also stated that Luis Emilio Caraballo, an official of the Azua Municipal Council, allegedly withdrew 30 passports, also without them being signed or fingerprinted. Soto stated that all the documents requesting passports to the Ministry were signed by Amaury Guzman. He also reiterated that the Municipal Electoral Boards do not have anything to do with the scandal as they did not issue election certificates in favor of the impostors. Acting Judge of Instruction Elka Reyes ordered the councilman for Sonador, Monsenor Nouel province, Saturnino Sanchez Suarez, to be released on bail. He was also in custody at La Victoria prison in connection with the passport case. The bail to be paid is RD$1.2 million and the suspect has to report to the District Attorney's office every month. Today, the Criminal Chamber of the Court of Appeals will hear a case in favor of the annulment of the sentence that sends former Technical Undersecretary of the Dominican Municipal League, Amaury Guzman, to Najayo prison. Councilwoman Adolfina Bocio Montero, of Hondo Valle, was arrested yesterday and an arrest warrant was issued against a councilman from Maimon, Fernando Antonio Fernandez Mateo. The Attorney General's department is seeking Ramon Caraballo Vilchez, an alleged assistant of Amaury Guzman, who is at large.
The Migration Department has suspended and indicted the director of the Investigations Department and the official responsible for the Consular Section, and adopted strict controls to allow all people connected to municipalities to leave the country on official passports. Diario Libre reports that Migration Director Carlos Amarante Baret announced that his department was working with judicial authorities in the investigation of the passport fraud involving mayors and councilmen from different municipalities. The fraudulent passports were used for travel abroad, particularly to Europe. Amarante Baret said that lieutenant colonel Francisco Romer Lopez and retired captain Eugenio Dario Diaz Fajardo, Directors of Investigations and the Consular Section, respectively, were being sought for questioning by the Attorney General's department, for having issued certificates authorizing individuals involved in the official passport "mafia" to travel abroad. However, he stated that the Migration Department's authorization had been issued after the authenticity of the passports had been confirmed with the Ministry of Foreign Relations. He sustained that the AG department must continue its investigation both in the Migration Department and the Ministry of Foreign Relations because the passports that were issued were not counterfeit.
This weekend, the government will hold a seminar to analyze the great challenges faced by the nation and solutions to the economic situation. President Leonel Fernandez will be present throughout the seminar. The meeting - to which 300 businesspeople and 200 representatives of civil society have been invited - will seek formulas to resolve the electric problem, short and medium term reforms and conditions to guarantee a positive impact of DR-CAFTA. Also invited are the presidents of both chambers of Congress and the Finance, Agriculture and Industry and Commerce commissions, Cardinal Lopez Rodriguez, Msgr. Agripino Nunez Collado and representatives of protestant churches. A recent analysis of the Dominican economy and its performance in the framework of the stand-by agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and a reflection on the sources of instability present in the international economic environment will complement the topics that will be analyzed at Dominican Fiesta Hotel, starting at 9:00 am Saturday.
The current government has invested approximately RD$898 million in the refurbishment and equipping of hospitals, as well as in the construction of new health centers around the country, according to Health Minister Bautista Rojas Gomez, Listin Diario reports. As an example, more than RD$200 million worth of equipment, medical supplies, and refurbishment has been provided to the Jose Maria Cabral y Baez Regional Hospital in Santiago. The completion of the Los Alcarrizos Hospital represented an investment of RD$480 million. Construction has begun on two hospitals in the municipalities of Navarrete and Pedro Garcia in Santiago, with a capacity of 40 and 20 beds, respectively, and representing an investment of RD$150 million. Also, RD$30 million is being invested in the refurbishment and equipment of Toribio Bencosme Hospital, Pascasio Toribio Piantini Hospital and San Vicente de Paul Hospital, located in Moca, Salcedo and San Francisco de Macoris, respectively. Rojas Gomez also mentioned the construction of a new emergency unit at the Dr. Luis E. Aybar Hospital at a cost of over RD$9 million and the reconstruction of a 15-bed emergency unit at Nuestra Senora de la Altagracia Hospital in Higuey.
Five persons who traveled out of the DR using official passports obtained fraudulently visited the Dominican Consulate in Genoa, Italy, seeking information for the issue of new documentation. Consul Mercedes Brito confirmed that one of them asked to be returned to the DR, according to Diario Libre. False councilman Felix Julian Estrella, who paid RD$100,000 for the official passport, showed an interest in returning to Santo Domingo. The Consulate is ready to offer all the attention his case requires. The rest of the group wanted to know how to obtain replacement passports. The consul reported they did not present any documentation so their names are not known.
The Senate and the Chamber of Deputies have formed a bicameral commission to study bills pertaining to the incentives for development of renewable energy sources and their special conditions. A report in Diario Libre says that the presidents of the Energy Commissions of both chambers, Angel Dignocrates Perez and Rafael Librado Castillo, assured that those bills are a priority because they are aimed at improving the quality of life in the country. They announced public hearings to be held on 19 October and a seminar on 26 October with the participation of international organizations, the private business sector and government officials.
The Punta Cana Group is insisting that land occupied by a company, which has among its shareholders the current District Attorney, was never turned over voluntarily nor were they part of payment of honorarium to a law firm, according to the terms of the contract signed with the Hernandez Peguero legal office. According to Listin Diario, the tourist consortium says that the land under litigation was never occupied irregularly and thus, there was no eviction performed by the Hernandez Peguero firm, as they claim. Punta Cana Group explaines that those lawyers were not hired by them to perform an eviction of land occupied illegally, and the contract established that payment of honorarium would be made immediately by the delivery of approximately 75 hectares of land to be located upon common arrangement no further than 500 meters from the road that leads to the project. (See DR1 Daily News 30 September 2005)
Over the last few days, Santiago police have arrested and indicted 14 couples caught having intercourse in parks and other public areas, according to Diario Libre. Santiago police spokesman Jesus Cordero Paredes, said that some of the detainees were Dominican and Haitian women who were practicing prostitution in the Plaza Valerio park and on the banks of Yaque del Norte River, near Baracoa. Also, people have been caught having sex inside cars on the streets of the city, and even in broad daylight. Cordero Paredes informed that the police are monitoring the different public places of the city which are known to be used by prostitutes and homosexuals.
Members of the operative intelligence division of the National Drug Control Department (DNCD) have seized 108 kilos of cocaine inside a vehicle left abandoned at a shopping center parking lot in Santo Domingo. DNCD spokesman Buenaventura Bueno Torres said that the drug was found thanks to the department's intelligence work, with the assistance of the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) of Newark, New Jersey. Several people have been arrested in connection to the case, but their names were not disclosed. In New Jersey, Dominicans Alex Medrano and Francisco Alvarado were arrested in connection to this case. The vehicle was abandoned at a shopping center on 27 de Febrero Avenue, and presumably was to be collected by other members of the network in an operation that was discovered by the Newark DEA. DNCD director vice admiral Ivan Pena Castillo said the drug was seized after the DEA in Newark informed the local department of the delivery operation.
Approximately 1,538 foreigners are detained in different prisons in the DR accused of a range of felonies, El Caribe reports. Most foreigners have been arrested in airports and ports carrying drugs as "mules" according to the Attorney General. European countries with the highest number of detainees are The Netherlands, with 45, followed by Spain, 26, and Germany, 8. Also, France, 3, Italy, 7 and Russia, 2. Other European detainees are from Bulgaria, Greece and Portugal. Others include citizens of Haiti, 419, Colombia, 50, Curacao, 12, United States, 30, Brazil, 6, Canada, 4, Puerto Rico, 30, Venezuela, 49, Panama, 5, Peru, 5, and Jamaica, 5. Also, Philippines, 2, Pakistan, 1. There are 803 detainees who did not have documentation when they were arrested and thus, their nationality is undetermined, according to the report. They are serving terms together with 11,316 Dominicans in 34 public prisons.
US authorities deported 80 Dominicans yesterday, after completing their terms in different US prisons, most of them related to narcotics, according to a report in El Caribe. The deportees arrived at Las Americas International Airport on an airplane in the custody of the US Justice Department. They were taken to the Police Department and the National Drug Control Department for their registration and later were released. The group includes ex-convicts who have served time for drug trafficking, homicide, and other felonies. Police registries estimate that there are approximately 31,000 deportees in the DR, 97% of them from the US.
"To the rhythm of the Caribbean III" is the title of artist Johnny Segura's tenth individual exhibition at Santo Domingo's Cuesta Bookstore. This exhibition includes small-format pieces in different media, including paintings, sculptures and drawings, and presents the artist's technical mastery of different styles and techniques. The artist was born in Nizao and studied at the National School of Fine Arts from 1982 to 1987, when he received a scholarship from the New York Academy of Arts. He has participated in more than 112 collective expositions and in numerous national and international symposia, biennials, festivals and workshops.
More than 400 dancers will perform onstage in the super-production of Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, to be presented by Ballet Clasico Alina Abreu, from the 28th to the 30th of October at the National Theater. This work is a dramatic ballet in four acts and is considered the most popular classical ballet. On Friday there will be two shows - a special performance for students at 11:00 am and a second performance at 8:30 pm. On Saturday the show will be at 8:30 pm and on Sunday at 6:30 pm. Tickets are on sale at the theater's box office and at Ballet Clasico Alina Abreu at 79 Sarasota Avenue.
The contents of this webpage are copyright © 1996-2008. DR1. All Rights Reserved.