Former minister of the Armed Forces, Jose Miguel Soto Jimenez stated that in January 2004 President Hipolito Mejia rejected his request for the dismissal of former army sergeant Quirino Ernesto Paulino Castillo and ordered instead that he cease his investigations to determine the source of his extreme wealth. Quirino Paulino is in jail in the US on drug smuggling charges, after being extradited from the DR.
Soto Jimenez said that Mejia told him that was a matter for the National Department of Drug Control (DNCD) and the Department of Investigations. “I am going to look into that in depth and you stay there,” Soto Jimenez claimed Mejia told him. He said that Mejia acknowledged knowing Quirino as a milk producer and sorghum farmer. As reported in El Caribe, Soto Jimenez said that his doubts about Quirino arose after a comment by an officer who told him that there was a sergeant who had a helicopter and owned most of the southern region. The comment, made informally during a luncheon at the Armed Forces (in October 2003), was made in the presence of lawyer Vincho Castillo, a former Drug Council president.
As reported in the Listin Diario, Soto Jimenez said that upon receiving the tip, he immediately consulted the Armed Forces intelligence director, General Furcy Castellanos and began to look into Quirino Paulino’s army career. In his record there was nothing that could justify how he had accumulated so much wealth, and so Soto Jimenez recommended his dismissal. He said he also recommended that Castellanos consult the US intelligence services and lawyer Vincho Castillo, a former Drug Council director.
Soto Jimenez said that Quirino Paulino was admitted to the army on three different occasions. First as a corporal during the first Leonel Fernandez government. He was later removed from the ranks. The second time was as a sergeant, in March 2002 during the Mejia government to be dismissed in July of that same year. The third time was in September 2003 this time with the rank of first lieutenant, jointly recommended by a group of seven officers, their respective chiefs of staff and the President of the Republic. Prior to Mejia leaving government, Paulino was promoted once more, this time to army captain on 25 July 2004. “In the case of this group of officers I was told (by Hipolito Mejia) not to obstruct the prerogative of the chiefs of staff, said Soto Jimenez.
Soto Jimenez said that the consultation could have been what sparked the interest of the US authorities in the Dominican army officer.
El Caribe also reports that former Air Force chief Virgilio Sierra Perez evaded answering questions about his own links to Quirino Paulino Castillo. He explained he did not answer questions because the Castillos already have the questioning that was made by the prosecutors. Sierra complained that he had requested a copy of these, but did not receive one.
Appearing on an 18 April TV interview with TV hosts Huchi Lora and Juan Bolivar Diaz, President Mejia had accused Soto Jimenez of lying and denied that he had been warned about Quirino Paulino’s illicit activities. On Saturday, though, sitting before Judge Esther Agelan Casasnovas, he admitted he had breakfast at Quirino Paulino’s Elias Pina home on 27 March 2004.
The hearing will resume on Wednesday, 26 May.