The 13 police agents who were being held in preventive custody in Barahona for an alleged robbery of a cocaine shipment seized from traffickers last year, were released on 11 October 2022 after the judge found there was insufficient evidence, and argued the actions committed did not constitute a criminal offense, El Dia reports.
The decision was adopted in the preliminary hearing of the case by judge Daniel Medina, head of the Court of Instruction of the Judicial District in Barahona.
The police agents are accused of having taken 400 kilos of cocaine seized on the coast of Barahona in August 2021 and of having subsequently distributed the drugs. The fact became public knowledge after the kidnapping of one of the agents implicated in the appropriation of the drugs.
In November 2021, the judge of the Judicial Office of Permanent Attention Services of Barahona, Maria Consuelo Valenzuela had imposed one year of preventive detention on the accused and declared the complexity of the case. The accusation of the Public Ministry was presented three months ago and the hearing on Tuesday, 11 October 2022 was the fourth in the examination of the evidence.
The recent court decision benefits Police captain Rafael Amaurys Medina Pérez and sergeants Oscar Andrés Valentín Jiménez (Oscalito), Frainel Féliz (Bambí), Jorge Ramón Alcántara Urbáez (Sargento Alcántara), Jordany Cuevas Méndez (Yoda), Miguel Ángel Féliz Féliz Féliz (Argenis).
Also corporals Esteban Armando Féliz Batista (Chatica), Juan Carlos Medina Méndez and Welni Féliz, and privates Iván Féliz Vólquez and Carlos David Pimentel Cuevas, Junior Geraldo García, Brayan Polanco and José M. Olivero.
As a consequence of the theft and distribution of drugs, the kidnapping of corporal Esteban Armando Féliz Batista (Chatica) took place on 3 November 2021 by three police officers and a civilian. At the time, police agents Wellington Ferreras, Jonathan Pérez, Cherilyn Suero Medina and Jorge Luis Díaz, a civilian, were arrested.
El Dia recalls that the kidnapping of Féliz Batista took place on the Barahona-Pedernales highway while he was traveling on a motorcycle. His captors demanded five million pesos and as they did not give them the money, they demanded two million pesos which would have generated a part of the drugs stolen by the agents and he received one million 745 thousand pesos.
Féliz Batista was abandoned in some bushes, from where he was taken to a police station, where the investigation of the case began.
El Dia says that the Public Prosecutor’s Office can still appeal the court’s decision. It has 20 days to do so.
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El Dia
12 October 2022