Hoy newspaper pointed out in a report on Wednesday, 22 December that approximately 100 military were readmitted to the forces during the Mejia administration, despite their having been previously removed for justifiable reasons, such as theft and drug smuggling.
The Armed Forces minister, the now-retired Lieutenant General Jose Miguel Soto Jimenez, was aware of the situation and created a commission to investigate the cases. Hoy newspaper has a copy of the shocking findings of that commission’s study.
The cases include an air force captain who the National Department of Investigations (DNI) had signaled as having been removed for his involvement in the trafficking of 399 kilos of cocaine from Santo Domingo to Miami. The drugs had been transported on an American Airlines jet on 9 April 1990. The captain entered the air force shortly after the start of government of then President Hipolito Mejia, on 1 October 2000, as a corporal and was swiftly promoted to captain.
In the army, there is the case of Lieutenant Colonel Jose Pimentel Garcia and Major Jose Petherson Santos, who had been dismissed for their alleged ties to well-known drug trafficker Cesar Augusto Diaz Pena. And Captain Williams Jimenez Villafana was readmitted to the army despite a charge of leaking information to drug smugglers, alerting them that they were being followed by the National Drug Control Department (DNCD).