The president of the Federation of Dominican Students (FED), Yimi Gabriel Zapata Batista was arrested on Tuesday, 3 October 2017, by police who intercepted him in a car park of a commercial center near to the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo (UASD).
There was an arrest warrant out for him accusing him of being part of a gang that defrauded students through irregular travel procedures to travel to the United States for a student trip. The case was presented long before Zapata was elected student president at the state university.
The National District prosecution service said they would be seeking coercive measures against Zapata and Guelmis Alberto Rivera González, José Luis Tavares Santos and Luis Armando Cruz Ruiz, also implicated in the crime, with 19 students complaining about them. The students were deported from the US for irregularities in their documentation.
Meanwhile classes were suspended at the UASD main campus in Santo Domingo due to student protests at the arrests. The UASD Rectory issued a statement saying they would resume on Thursday, 5 October 2019 at 7am. El Día said that the suspension of classes at the UASD was the result of a group of vandals. As reported in Diario Libre, UASD students urged that the case be left in the hands of the courts and that classes continue at the university.
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El Dia
El Dia
El Dia
El Dia
El Dia
5 October 2017
