47-year old Enrique Figueroa, a resident in New York, was arrested after threatening on social media to kill President Luis Abinader who is in New York to attend the 76th UN General Assembly. Abinader is scheduled to speak on Wednesday, 22 September at the UN.
ABC News journalist was first to tweet: “A man arrested in NYC threatened to kill a world leader attending the UN General Assembly. Enrique Figueroa was charged with threatening a foreign official and making interstate threats against Luis Abinader, president of the Dominican Republic, a source told ABC News.”
Figueroa had been active with threats against Dominicans in the past, including against the Green March protestors in New York City in 2018.
Figueroa was arrested on Sunday evening. NBC reports that a FBI-Joint Terrorism Task Force arrested and charged him in a criminal complaint Monday, 20 September 2021. A senior official told NBC that there’s no evidence to suggest the suspect had any means to try to carry out any potential plot but stressed the importance of taking such threats seriously, especially as more than 100 world leaders converge on Manhattan.
President Luis Abinader said he learned about the threats in the media.
NBC reports that the man is believed to have past emotional problems and has allegedly made previous online threats for which he was taken to a hospital for psychological evaluation.
ABC News
NYTimes
NBC News
Washington Post
Diario Libre
21 September 2021