The new National Attorney General, Abel Rodriguez del Orbe, has pledged his support for Judge Alexis Henriquez Nuñez in the continuing investigation of the murder of twelve year old Jose Rafael Llenas Aybar, on 3 May. Mr. Rodriguez del Orbe promised to give Judge Henriquez Nuñez the necessary time to carry out all the questioning that he sees fit. In addition, Foreign Minister Eduardo Latorre has said that he would be willing to ask for the extradition of the son and husband of the former Argentine Ambassador to the D.R., Teresa Meccia de Palma, if Judge Henriquez’s preliminary findings merit such action.
Mrs. Meccia de Palma’s son, Martin Palma Meccia and husband Luis Palma have been implicated in the case by one of the confessed killers, Mario Jose Redondo Llenas. The Attorney General for the National District, Guillermo Moreno, told the newspaper Listin Diario, that there will be no “untouchables” in the case, meaning that anyone implicated in the investigation will be prosecuted.
Jacqueline Ventura of the Listin Diario met with an unidentified member of the Argentine Foreign Ministry in Buenos Aires who told her that there has been no official information about any allegations made against the Meccias in Santo Domingo, but the case was common knowledge in the Ministry and that President Carlos Menem had been notified of the situation.
The source told the Listin Diario that Foreign Minister Guido di Tella had removed Mrs. Meccia de Palma from her post in August of this year because of the four year limit in diplomatic service in one country, and that she had been ambassador to the D.R. for almost six.
The same source said that the appointment of Mrs. Meccia de Palma as Ambassador to the D.R. was part of the political spoils resulting from Mr. Menem’s electoral victory in 1989, as Mrs. Meccia and her husband were key figures in the current President’s nomination for the Partido Justicialista (Peronista).
One other aspect of the case mentioned in Mrs. Ventura’s article was the lost passport of Mr. Palma Meccia, who reported it missing in September of 1995. The passport was later used to leave the country by a convicted Venezuelan drug trafficker who had escaped from La Victoria prison in the National District. The National Directorate of Drug Control (DNCD) has searched the property of the Palma-Meccia family near where the boy’s body was found, but nothing incriminating has been reported to have been found.