After more than a year of delaying the case on legal technicalities and maintaining his innocence, Fenatrado truckers’ association president Blas Peralta admitted in court on Thursday, 29 June 2017 that he shot the bullets that killed former UASD rector Mateo Aquino Febrillet. Aquino Febrillet was rector of the UASD from 2011-2014.
During the opening of the hearing for the trial at the First Collegiate Court of the National District during the morning session, Peralta’s chauffeur Franklin Venegas and his “right hand” Gerardo Félix Batista, who were in the vehicle at the time of the murder, had testified that Peralta fired the fatal shots on 11 March 2016.
Batista and Venegas said they had not spoken up before because Peralta had threatened to kill them if they talked. Venegas and Félix Batista asked for forgiveness from the family of Aquino Febrillet, the widow Rita Solís and her children and the UASD for the tragic incident.
Venegas said Blas Peralta was in the front passenger seat from where he fired the fatal shots. Venegas said that Peralta pursued deputy Eduardo Montás (PRSC-San Cristóbal) as he drove away in the vehicle of Mateo Aquino Febrillet. He said Peralta was very agitated and exclaimed “the game was over” and then he fired two shots.
Venegas testified that the gun got stuck after the two shots, and that at the time Peralta had stated that if the gun had not got stuck, he would have killed all in the vehicle.
Geraldo Félix Bautista, mentioned as a right hand of Peralta, said Peralta’s defense lawyer had told them to not talk to anyone, and that he would take care of everything.
Eric Raful, lawyer of Peralta, said that the statements by Venegas and Félix Batista only meant that these two individuals reached an agreement with the prosecutors to blame his defendant. He discarded their statements from having legal standing – saying these two only sought to be relieved of responsibility in the murder case.
But then in the afternoon session, after hearing the testimony, Peralta himself would admit his responsibility for the first time. “I cannot deny here that I fired, I would irresponsible, and I am not an irresponsible man. I am a man who commands 92,000 men,” said the president of the fearsome Fenatrado truckers’ association.
Peralta would then attempt to justify his actions. He said he had been meeting with deputy Eduardo Montás at the Restaurante El Lado for several hours and Montás had downed too much wine and became violent, slapped him and later fled. He then got in his own vehicle with his driver Franklin Venegas and Geraldo Félix Bautista and went in pursuit of Montás who had left with Aquino Febrillet.
Peralta said that Geraldo Félix Bautista handed him a gun and he fired. He said he was hot and bothered and did not know the SUV they pursued was that of Aquino Febrillet. He denied the version that the gun got stuck. And he accused Colonel Rafael Herrera Peña of having the murder weapon that he said he personally handed to have the gun changed.
Peralta also asked for pardon to the relatives of Aquino Febrillet and Dominican society. He said that a man is brave when he admits his error.
Also speaking at the hearing, was Omar Enriquillo Sosa Méndez, driver of the vehicle in which Mateo Aquino Febrillet and Eduardo Montás were riding on the day of the murder. Sosa identified Peralta as the person who fired the fatal shots. During the incident, Montás suffered a superficial wound on his left arm, while the secretary of the former rector, Elaine Mañaná was injured in her left leg.
National District prosecutor Yeni Berenice Reynoso said the testimony confirms the theory of the prosecution that Blas Peralta murdered Aquino Febrillet.
Read more in Spanish:
Hoy
El Caribe
Al Momento
30 June 2017
