After a week’s inactivity in the investigation of the murder of 12-year-old Jose Rafael Llenas Aybar, Judge Alexis Henríquez Nuñez will restart his examining. The judge, who was given 60 days to complete a preliminary investigation of the 3 May murder on 20 May, had been unsuccessful in his attempt to obtain an extension of the period, but has now been given the go-ahead by the National Attorney General, Ramon Pina Acevedo.
Dr. Pina Acevedo told the news media that although the official period has expired, all findings made will be valid in a court of law if and when the case comes to trial. Judge Henríquez had asked for an extension from the head of the Santo Domingo Court of Appeals, Cecilio Pérez Gómez, who returned the written request, claiming that the judge had not properly documented his findings during the first period nor correctly outlined his objectives for the potential 60-day extension.
With the statements made by Dr. Pina Acevedo, however, Judge Henríquez Nuñez will now be able to continue his investigation, which includes a possible involvement of the husband and son of the former Argentine Ambassador to the D.R., Teresa Meccia de Palma. The names of her husband Luis Palma and her son Martin Luis Palma Meccia have come up frequently in the questioning of Mario Jose Redondo Llenas, one of the confessed killers.
Mr. Palma Meccia was allegedly a close friend of Mr. Redondo Llenas, and although it was first stated that the former had left the D.R. on 2 May, one day before the murder, it was later proved that he in fact left for Venezuela on 6 May, three days after the crime. The fact that the victim’s body was left very near to property belonging to the Palma-Meccia family, plus the alleged failed kidnapping plot against a young woman attributed to Mr. Palma Meccia, forms just part of the mounting evidence against the son of the ex-Ambassador.
Mrs. Meccia de Palma, who had been Ambassador to the D.R. since 1991, was reported to have been removed from the post by the Argentine Foreign Ministry, yet no report of her or her husband’s departure has been published.
Judge Henríquez Nuñez is still waiting for a response from President Joaquín Balaguer to his request that diplomatic immunity be lifted in the case, although most legal experts doubt that such a measure could be effected.