Last week, Doctor Alexis Henríquez, the judge in charge of the investigations into the murder of 12 year old Jose Rafael Llenas Aybar and the plan to kidnap a young girl, requested President Balaguer to petition President Carlos Menem of Argentina to remove diplomatic immunity from the husband and a son of the Argentine Ambassador to the Dominican Republic, Teresa Meccia de Palma, whom the judge says are both implicated in the cases. The young boy was murdered on 3 May and his body bore 34 stabs wounds which led the authorities to continue their investigations despite the confessions of 19 year old Mario Jose Redondo Llenas, a first cousin of the victim, and Jose Manuel Moliné Rodríguez.
During the questioning by the Police and the Fiscalía, Mario José Redondo Llenas said that the proposed kidnapping of Garcia Varona, for whom they intended to demand a ransom of RD$5 million, was planned in the house of the Palma Meccia family.
The questioning of Lidia Maria Santana, the trainer of the dogs belonging to the Palma-Meccias, led to the request being made to President Balaguer by the judge. Ambassador Teresa Meccia de Palma later met President Balaguer but chose to continue not speaking to the press about the issue. President Balaguer since September,1995, has also not been holding his previously customary press conferences.
In a new development, it has been reported that there is now information evidencing that the claim that Mr. Luis Palma and his son Martin Palma left the country a day before the killing, as apparently evidenced by a departure slip with the stamp of the Department of Immigration, is untrue. The judge has requested an airline certification of their departure date. It has also been said that the two left the day after the murder on board a Viasa aircraft to Caracas and not to Miami as previously reported.
The husband of the ambassador has earned notoriety for his violent nature and for the abuse of his diplomatic status in this country, prior to the Llenas Aybar case. On one occasion he physically attacked a student, Luis Carbuccia, at the Universidad Iberoamerica with a knuckleduster. Mr Carbuccia had had a row with Martin Palma some days before at a discotheque in Altos de Chavon. It was even necessary for the rector of the university to personally intervene in the affray to prevent the student from suffering serious injuries.
Llenas Aybar disappeared on 3 May and, the day after, his body was found in the Arroyo Lebron at Km 24 on the Autopista Duarte. The Palma Meccias had a house in the area where pedigree dogs were bred and trained.