The Attorney General of the National District, Guillermo Moreno, has called on the lawyers of the so-called “desacatados”, or those whose release has been ordered by the courts but who are still jailed, to present the release orders in order to grant them their freedom. The case of prisoners with release orders is just part of the problem in the Dominican prison system, which is grossly overcrowded and the majority of whose inmates have yet to be charged.
Mr. Moreno told the newspaper El Nacional that if the release orders are proved to be authentic, they will be executed. He warned, however, that not all inmates who claim to be desacatados are actually in that state, and that a close examination of the documents will be maintained to prevent falsification.
The two most famous desacatados in the D.R. are Francisco (Franklyn) Franco, who is being held without charge by the National Directorate of Drug Control (DNCD), and Luis Lizardo Cabrera, who was a suspect in the planting of a bomb in the Instituto Cultural Dominico-Americano (ICDA) which killed a young girl in 1987. It has been implied in the news media that the two are being held because of pressure from the United States, especially in the case of Mr. Franco, who escaped from a prison in Minnesota and fled to the D.R. On numerous occasions, U.S. Ambassador Donna Jean Hrinak has expressed the wish of her government that Mr. Franco be extradited back to the U.S. to stand trial.