Luis Emilio de la Rosa Beras, one of the men accused of the murder of Ahora news magazine editor Orlando Martinez, said that then Major of the Air Force Joaquin Antonio Pou Castro directed the plot against the journalist. He said in the ongoing trial being heard in Santo Domingo that Mariano Durán Cabrera and Alfredo Lluberes Ricart were whom fired the shots against the editor of Ahora newsweekly magazine back in 1975. De la Rosa Beras was 17 years old at the time of the murder. He said he was a witness to the crime because he had asked Lluberes Ricart for a "job," and Lluberes took him along the day of the murder. Hoy newspaper reports that in 1975 De la Rosa Beras confessed to the commission called by General Neit Nivar Seijas to investigate the crime that Pou Castro, Duran Cabrera and Lluberes Ricart participated in the crime. The newspaper explains that at the time, the commission assigned to deputy chief of the police Robinson Brea Garo falsified the outcome of the investigations and in turn accused then leftists Melvin Manon, Cheche Luna and Diomedes Mercedes, who were arrested at the time, although subsequently released. De la Rosa explained that Pou Castro purposely crashed the vehicle of Orlando Martínez. When the journalist got out of his car, he was shot at by Lluberes and Durán. De la Rosa said that Pou Castro never got out of the car. The Orlando Martínez trial has special attention because of its political and state implications. The Listin Diario newspaper points out that it is the longest standing criminal trial and is a tale of covert up by high up power structures that went from Police dossiers with the participation of the then district attorney’s office to accuse innocent persons, using the dossier as a way to affect politically undesirables. The revelations were first contained in the document prepared by Judge Juan Miguel Castillo Pantaleón in 1997, who broke the ice and began to establish the first serious responsibilities on the crime. The crime also brings to the forefront the institutional weakness of the judiciary. Judge Katia Miguelina Jimenez is now in charge of the hearings. In a recent hearing, she released former President Balaguer, under whose government the crime took place, from appearing in court. For more information on the hearings, see earlier DR1 briefs (http://www.dr1.com/daily/news072700.shtml and http://www.dr1.com/daily/news072800.shtml)
