The Partido Revolucionario Dominicano (PRD) gave a press conference on Friday, 3 May to announce a supposed conspiracy against the life of its presidential candidate, José Francisco Peña Gómez. The previous day, Dr Peña Gómez himself had condemned the existence of an alleged plan to hinder the election, by provoking armed confrontations between members of his party and the Partido de la Liberación Dominicana, his principal rivals in the forthcoming election.
At the PRD press conference, in the presence of TV producers Nuria Piera and José Corporán de los Santos and Juan Sully Bonelly, a judge with the JCE, Rafael Antonio Pimentel Anderson was presented. He was arrested by members of the security force accompanying Dr Peña Gómez. He explained that he had been hired to change the route of a PRD procession through San Cristóbal, so that an attempt on the candidate’s life could be made. The plot was discovered when the head of the Nigua office checked the change of route with the head of the PRD in San Cristóbal who, not being informed about it himself, checked with the candidate’s security officers. He agreed to make a public confession if his life was guaranteed by the television people. Mr Pimentel went so far as to say that an earlier attempt on the life of Peña Gómez had been made the previous week in Villa Altagracia, but it had been the candidate himself who had changed route. He also said that he was a member of the PRSC.
When asked by the press to comment on the affair, the PRSC presidential candidate Jacinto Peynado, said he knew nothing about it, but it was not the first time that the PRD leader made this kind of announcement. Leonel Fernández, of the PLD, discarded the possibility of government officers being involved in a plot to assassinate Dr Peña Gómez and said it was a show staged to attract attention, promoted by the proximity of the election.
On Saturday, speaking at the Police headquarters to the press, the prisoner, Rafael Antonio Pimentel Anderson, said he made the public statement about his participation in a plot against Dr Peña Gómez under pressure from people of the PRD, but maintained that he was hired by an officer supposedly linked to the government to watch the route of the PRD presidential candidate. The Police said that his real name is Anderson José Tailar Quintero and he has 14 files with the Police for falsification and fraud, involving eight pseudonyms.
Dr Peña Gómez when interviewed on Saturday, also said that he “nether believes nor disbelieves” that there is a plot against his life, but accused the inner circle of the presidency of conspiring prevent the election from being held.