The Public Prosecution service has announced they will seek coercive measures for those detained in the murder of the lawyer and UASD university professor, Yuniol Ramírez.
At present, under arrest are the director of the Metropolitan Autobus Office (OMSA) Manuel Antonio Rivas Medina, and OMSA employee José Antonio Mercado Blanco, Omsa financial director and Police captain Faustino Rosario Díaz, and businessman Eddy Rafael Santana Zorrilla.
Still on the run is Argenis Contreras González, another OMSA employee, who is accused of physically committing the crime along with Mercado Blanco.
The accused are being held at the Police Investigation Department with the exception of Manuel Rivas, who is at the Unit of Complex Crimes.
The prosecutors preliminary investigation revealed the murder was carried out because of the extorsion that allegedly the deceased demanded of the former director of OMSA for desisting of a legal recourse against corruption at the Omsa and for which he would have made a first payment of RD$1 million of RD$4 million.
Meanwhile, the Administrative Minister of the Presidency, José Ramón Peralta, has assured that President Danilo Medina will take a decision about the OMSA corruption case and that if there is evidence of corruption at the institution then consequences will follow.
Peralta said that in cases of this nature, it has to be asked who actually carried out the crimes and who the intellectual author of the crimes was. He said President Medina had always taken action when the situation was clear and that he always acted responsibly against any situation that affected the integrity of all government agencies and any government official accused of misdeeds – and this case not being an exception.
Lawyer Yuniol Ramírez was found murdered in the Manoguayabo River. It is known that he abruptly left a class he was giving after receiving a call on his mobile. State prosecutors have accused the Omsa employees of the murder, and the motive was that he was bribing the director of Omsa, Manuel Rivas, a claim that has been disputed by the family of the deceased.
According to the authorities he was murdered by workers at OMSA as he was supposedly bribing the director of the institution, Manuel Rivas, a claim which has been disputed by the family of the deceased.
In 2013, Diario Libre had published details of alleged corruption at the OMSA, but despite the evidence, the Medina administration ignored the claims. The Diario Libre article focused on millionaire debts, privileges and illegalities at Omsa.
Read more in Spanish:
Diario Libre
Listin Diario
7 Dias
El Caribe
Diario Libre
Diario Libre
17 October 2017
