A Haitian immigrant who sued the country before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights used forged documents to register the birth of three people and to vote in the last five elections, says the Central Electoral Board. On Tuesday, 4 March the Central Electoral Board (JCE) accused him of using false documents to establish his Dominican nationality. The complaint filed with the District Attorney of the National District, Yeni Berenice Reynoso, by JCE president Roberto Rosario, says that the accused, William Medina Ferreras, used his forged ID to vote in the elections of 2002, 2006, 2008, 2010 and 2012. “In addition to using this identification, William Medina Ferreras registered the births of Carolina Medina Perez, Luis Ney Medina Perez and Awilda Medina Perez,” the complaint reads.
In October 2013, Medina Ferreras, 47, told the Inter-American Court of Human Rights that he lived in the border town of Oviedo, in the southwestern province of Pedernales, and that one early morning some 14 years ago, military agents and an immigration official arrived at his house and detained him “accusing him of being a Haitian.” He said that despite being Dominican, he was deported to Haiti together with his family in 2000, where he had to beg in order to survive.
His case remains in the files known as “Tide Mendez and others vs. Dominican Republic” which refers to the expulsion of 27 people, an action said to be a sample of the racial discrimination in the Dominican Republic and alleged human rights violations during roundups and mass deportations in the 1990s.
The case file says that the birth certificate obtained illegally by the defendant indicates a birth registration in the Civil Registry Office in Cabral.
The JCE filed a civil suit on Tuesday, 4 March and asked the District Attorney for the National District to investigate the defendant and anyone else who may be implicated, in order to send them to justice. The institution demanded payments for damages and loss, provisionally estimated at a total of RD$1 million, as well as the application of the corresponding penal sanctions.