The first secretary of Tourism of the Dominican Republic, Victor Cabral Amiama released yesterday during a launching with friends and family the book “Story of Infamy. The Hazoury, Justice and I”. In the book (Historia de una infamia), Cabral shares the details of the lawsuit the owners of the Cap Cana tourism development presented against him in 2005 for “abuse of confidence”.
Cabral was the first director of the Cap Cana hotel and residential tourism development in Punta Cana. He presents details of the legal case where he was sentenced for the irresponsible management of US$28,000 (RD$200,000 at the time) and sent to Najayo jail for six weeks in 2008 and later allowed to serve domiciliary arrest for the rest of the one-year term. At the time, Cabral was 70 years old.
Cabral explained he wrote and published the book to clarify a situation that has damaged his honor, affected his family and his professional career of more than 50 years. He insisted with the publication he seeks to encourage others who have suffered because of weaknesses in the Dominican judicial system to come forth to tell their stories.
The book was presented at a gathering at the El Embajador Hotel, the same hotel where Cabral would begin his successful international hotel career more than 60 years ago.
The book narrates the process that was carried out to handle the judges who condemned him for the Cap Cana case, accused of the alleged mishandling of around RD$200 thousand.
In recounting his story, Cabral said he received the judicial summons shortly after the historic sale of upwards of more than US$105 million in property at the Cap Cana.
Cabral now lives in Mexico, where he wrote the book. He said that he decided to break his silence and tell the story of the circumstances in which he went from being a high official of Cap Cana and the Abrisa Group to being tried for breach of trust in a “surprising process in which the until then very slow Dominican justice system set a record by taking the case, in less than a year, from a judge of first instance to the Supreme Court of Justice, where his fate was decided in a few days.”
Jorge Subero Medina, the son of the president of the Supreme Court of Justice at the time, Jorge Subero Isa, would go on to become the president of Cap Cana.
Cabral mentions in the book that the power of the Hazoury brothers was such that many influential persons turned their backs on him.
He explains the incidences of the preliminary trial that sent him to the Penal Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice. He mentions that the judge discarded 65 documentary evidences and accepted 30 and other 64 he left to the consideration of the Penal Chamber. He tells that the court eliminated most of the important witnesses of the defense, but accepted all those from Cap Cana.
“Nor did he accept the request for a new independent audit; he limited the defense lawyers and disavowed them, while allowing all the actions of the prosecuting attorneys who were really the ones running the trial,” narrates the author.
Cabral was the Dominican Republic’s first Secretary of Tourism from 1978 and 1981. Previously, he was the developer of the Gulf & Western hotel and real division in the Dominican Republic. He was also a high-ranking executive for Sheraton Corporation, Radisson and Camino Real. He is a former adjunct director for marketing of the Mexican Fondo Nacional para el Fomento de Turismo (Fonatur).
Cabral published the book in Mexico where he lives and consults to tourism ventures in Mexico today.
The book is available in the Dominican Republic in the Cuesta bookstore of Av. 27 de Febrero. It will soon be available for purchase in Amazon.
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Hoy
23 June 2021