Dominican Air Force Colonel Carlos Picini Nuñez asked the Fourth Chamber for Instruction of the National District to include as witnesses in the Embraer-Super Tucano case, former Minister of the Armed to Forces, Lieutenant General José Miguel Soto Jimenez as well as a nephew of Senator René Canaan Rojas. Soto Jiménez had served as Dominican ambassador in Taiwan until relations with Taiwan were severed on 30 April 2018.
Piccini says that if there were bribes for acquiring the Brazilian aircraft, then they were paid through the Presidency of the Republic, the Ministry of Hacienda and the Senate.
In a deposition filed on 11 May, Piccini who is the only person currently in jail for the US$3.5 million paid in bribes paid by the Brazilian Aeronautical Company (Embraer) for the purchase and sale of eight planes by the Dominican government, it was stated that it was the President of the Republic in 2007 (Leonel Fernández) who authorized then Minister of the Armed Forces, Ramon Antonio Aquino Garcia to sign an addendum to the contract for acquiring the Tucano aircraft.
With the testimony of Soto Jimenez and Rafael Guillermo Bueno Vasquez, the former Air Force chief of staff, said he will be able to “prove that they were the persons who conceived the project of the Super Tucano aircraft and this was not a project thought up by Mister Carlos Picini Nuñez.”
The document goes on to list testimony by a series of persons who have been investigated regarding this purchase of over US$90 million.
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Diario Libre
17 May 2018
