Dominican Foreign Minister Miguel Vargas says that a high level commission will go to The Bahamas on 26 November 2018 to sign an extradition agreement for Dominican fishermen who are serving jail sentences there. The commission expects to return with at least three of the 127 fishermen who are currently in custody in the Bahamas.
Vargas assured that the Embassy of the Dominican Republic in Bahamas has been helping the fishermen, providing them with food and other essential items. He said the men are being held in less than ideal conditions. Vargas said that the objective of the government in this case is to negotiate the quick release of the detained fishermen.
In addition he said that the authorities had reached an agreement with local fisherman to provide location devices that would determine whether fishermen were in international, Dominican or Bahamian waters in order to eliminate any errors in the future.
On Monday, 19 November, the family members of several of the arrested men gathered in Puerto Plata to complain about the poor conditions their relatives were being held in which included a small cell with little ventilation, limited food and no communication with their families.
The group is made up of 124 fishermen and three captains who were captured on 13 October by the Bahamian authorities some twelve nautical miles north of Cuba. They were sentenced to six months in jail and the payment of US$52,000 each with the captains sentenced to a year in jail and the payment of US$92,000 each for fishing illegally in Bahamian waters.
Read more in Spanish:
Al Momento
El Nacional
21 November 2018
