He was never charged but neither released. Luis Peña Valdez of Batey Verde, Monte Plata was working as a mason until he demanded pay and an engineer maneuvered to get him sent to La Victoria. Peña Valdez has no identify papers. His parents never declared him.
He said he survived the 12 years in jail washing clothes for other inmates. In many cases, he was not paid for his work and could do nothing. He said he ate what the jail had available.
His family could not help him get out of jail. It was not until the government changed and the jail authorities changed, that his case got moving. Manuel María Mercedes, president of the Dominican Commission of Human Rights took on his case. The authorities eventually released him seeing he shouldn’t have been in jail in the first place.
Now he seeks compensation for the tragic error. He doesn’t have a job; he doesn’t have a family.
“This is something that should move the country so that never again a citizen have to go through a situation like this,” says Mercedes. He asks how is it possible that the officer who arrested Peña Valdez, that he was jailed in La Victoria, and through the actions of the irresponsible former director of La Victoria kept in jail for 12 years, as if nothing had happened.
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El Caribe
11 August 2021