Retired General Joaquin Antonio Pou Castro said that he accepted the task of putting together a crew to "beat-up" the editor of Ahora newsweekly magazine Orlando Martinez in 1975, and that the order came from General Jose Isidoro Martinez Gonzalez (then chief of the secret service), who died November 1999. He refused to implicate any other high up government officials or military in the murder. (Listin Diario printed comments by District Attorney assistant lawyer Danny German Villalona, who said that "now it is very good to blame the dead, as they are doing with Isidoro.") Pou Castro said that as per the assignment, he recruited Rafael Alfredo Lluberes Ricart, who carried out services for the intelligence unit of the Air Force, and former sergeant Mariano Cabrera Duran and gave these instructions to beat up the journalist. "It simply was a beating because he had bothered the government," he explained. "I did not kill him, nor send him to be killed," said Pou in court. "The order was to break his arms and leave him on the ground, but the order was not to eliminate him," he reiterated. Investigations indicate he was in the car used to crash into the journalist’s car to force him to stop when the shots were fired. Upon hearing the shots, it is recalled that he called out at the time, "The heck, look at the problem you have dealt me." (qué vaina es que ustedes me han echado." ) Pou Castro said there are internal affairs he would never reveal as he owes loyalty to the Armed Forces until death. "They can pull off my head, and I will not talk," he said during the trial. He did admit in court that he feared the "uncontrollables," using the term former President Balaguer used to refer to the top ranking military brass in the first 12-year term of his government. El Siglo newspaper concludes: "The revelations of the co-accused seem like a summons to Balaguer to complete, if there are others, the list of whom are in front or behind the death of Orlando". Rafael Alfredo Lluberes Ricart (Lluberito), one of the two accused of firing at Orlando Martínez said in court yesterday that the crime was justified for political reasons. Minister of the Armed Forces at the time, Ramón Emilio Jimenez and then Minister of the Army Enrique Perez y Perez have sat through the trial hearings. Minister of the Air Force at the time, Salvador Lluberes Montás is accused as the intellectual author of the crime. For background information on the trial, see previous DR1 Daily News briefs.
