Attorney General Office and the National Judiciary Council have acknowledged an investigation is underway into the supposed death of Pedro Alejandro Castillo Paniagua (Quirinito). Castillo Paniagua has been in jail sentenced in 2010 and began serving a 30-year sentence for the 2008 murder of Spaniard Adolfo Justo Cervantes Arellano (Waikiki). Castillo Paniagua’s sentence was reduced to 20 years in 2013. He is the nephew of infamous drug trafficker, former army colonel Quirino Ernesto Paulino Castillo.
This 2017, Castillo Paniagua was authorized to leave the jail for domiciliary arrest in San Francisco de Macorís, where his wife Jennifer Stephanie Domínguez was named his guarantor. The change was authorized after medical certificates were presented, including one from the National Institute of Forensic Sciences, certifying he had terminal mouth cancer. Among the certificates for the terminal cancer is one from oncologist César Augusto Núñez Rojas. The transfer documents explain the transfer to San Francisco de Macoris was for humanity reasons so he could be near his parents who live in San Francisco de Macorís.
Not long after, Castillo Paniagua was issued a death certificate. When El Nacional reporters called family relatives in Elias Piña these said they expressed doubts about his death. There is speculation the death certificate was part of a scheme to facilitate his escape from justice. The death certificate states he died on 5 July 2017 of a heart attack and complications from cancer at a house located in Residencial Betty Marie in Paseo de los Ríos, San Francisco de Macorís.
As reported, under investigation are judge Jiménez, the forensic scientist who signed the death certificate and the judge of the first circumscription of San Francisco de Macorís who certified the document. The burial site of Castillo Paniagua has not been revealed.
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El Nuevo Diario
28 September 2017
