The gruesome murder of a well-respected colonel in the National Police, Daniel Ramos Alvarez, in the town of Bani has been and remains on the front pages of all of the local newspapers and in social media as well. The video of the killing has been seen hundreds of thousands of times. The video does not show who committed the murder but clearly shows the irregular acting of the police men that accompanied the murdered colonel.
The senator from Baní, Wilton Guerrero, told reporters last week that “it was an ambush.” The lead suspect of the killing is supposedly an informant for the National Drug Control Agency (DNCD) and a deportee from the United States.
Two officers of the National Police, lieutenant colonel Matías Brazobán and captain Marcelino Arias, who accompanied Ramos Alvarez, are under arrest for abandoning the scene of the crime without providing aid to the fallen officer. A video shows the injured colonel attempting to bring himself to safety.
Attorney General Jean Alain Rodriguez has announced that he is expanding the team investigating the assassination of the officer. There are, apparently many lines to be investigated. Senator Guerrero said that the lieutenant colonel who was with Ramos Alvarez at the time of his death had been part of his own security detail but resigned in order to “collect tolls from drug distribution points.”
The Attorney General is also asking for 18 months of preventive custody for the persons involved in the shooting. Rodriguez added that the team of investigators is being assisted by prosecutors from several courts in Bani and the National District.
The murder has caused much outrage and evidenced the complicities and lack of action on behalf of the authorities with the drug trade in the region. On Friday, 11 January 2019, Diario Libre dedicated three of its editorials to the murder.
Meanwhile, Peravia senator, Wilton Guerrero said that the members of the commission entrusted with the investigations of the murder “do not qualify for that mission.” He said the named investigators are accomplices of the suspect murderer. He said all they will do is cover up the crime because they are at his service. He specifically mentioned sergeant Henry Gomez and sergeant McGiver, saying these are both on the payroll of the so-named Rafael Antonio Díaz (‘Buche’), the lead suspect in the case and alleged owner of the drug point where the murder occurred.
Senator Guerrero went on record in Congress saying that the late Colonel Daniel Ramos Álvarez had dedicated his life to fighting drug trafficking in Peravia while the agents of the National Drug Control Agency and the Central Counternarcotics Agency (Dican) demanded bribes for their complicity. “The report I have is that Colonel Ramos was a worthy man, a honest man who has no tail to step on. He was the only one who had dedicated himself to fighting organized crime in Baní because the DNCD was in charge of collecting the drug tolls and the Dican was not into fighting drug trafficking either,”said Guerrero.
The senator also added that Rafael Antonio Díaz (Buche), accused of the death of the colonel “is the darling kid” of the National Drug Control Agency in Peravia.
Guerrero says that in the city there are another 40 drug points for which bribes are paid for the drug vending operations to be undisturbed.
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Hoy
14 January 2019
