2011 – Page 82

Ramon Colombo writes today in El Caribe about the absurdity of political patronage that insists on creating worthless jobs by carving up the country into more districts and municipalities. “A state of 48,000km2 with 32 provinces (1,500 square kilometers and 312,000 inhabitants on average), with 158 municipalities (with an average of 303km2 and 63,000 inhabitants …

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Virgilio Bello Rosa has come out from the intensive care unit at the Abel Gonzalez Clinic, his doctors announced yesterday. The former Attorney General suffered a traumatic fall in his Jarabacoa home on 16 July and was hospitalized in the ICU. He is now breathing and eating by himself. The PRD politician underwent brain surgery …

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Catholic priest Santiago Bautista has criticized President Leonel Fernandez for making no comments on the WikiLeaks revelations of corruption among senior military and police and suspected complicity with drug trafficking that led to the revocation of visas of several Fernandez administration government officials, as reported in acento.com.do An earlier WikiLeaks document also revealed cases of …

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Former National District prosecutor Guillermo Moreno says the Fernandez administration is maintaining a silent complicity about serious allegations in the WikiLeaks documents released recently by Grupo SIN. As reported in acento.com.do, Moreno, who aspires to the Presidency on the Alianza Pais ticket, said the WikiLeaks reports and the cases known as Atiemar Tower, Paya Massacre, …

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Santo Domingo prosecutors have released businessman Juan Carlos Lopez Alcantara, the main suspect in the murder of his former wife, 29-year old Yesenia Rivera Figuereo “due to lack of evidence to incriminate him.” Rivera’s relatives said they would continue to pursue the case against Lopez. The victim’s father said they would accuse assistant prosecutor Maximo …

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The National District prosecution had announced earlier it had reached deals in the Figueroa Agosto case. Now it is official. The prosecution spared Sobeida Felix Morel, the lover of Puerto Rican drug capo Jose David Figueroa and requested five years for her, the main defendant in the case. The prosecution also asked for 10 years …

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A group of lawyers filed a motion for a declaration of unconstitutionality before the Supreme Court against the law 145-11, which sets the retirement age of judges of the Constitutional Court at 75 years. The request was submitted earlier this month by attorneys Frank Reynaldo Fermin, Carlos Balcacer and Cesar Alejandro Guzman Lizardo. It is …

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Barcelona airport police arrested a 37-year-old Spanish national last week after he was found to be carrying 92 balls of cocaine weighing 956 grams in his stomach. He had arrived from the Dominican Republic and was arrested when leaving the terminal on 23 July. The man, whose identity has not been revealed, was arrested after …

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A Dominican Republic Air Force corporal has been detained after authorities say he tried to transport two bicycles filled with cocaine aboard a commercial flight, as reported in El Caribe. National Drug Control Agency spokesman Roberto Lebron says Juan Emilio Feliz Salvador was detained at the X-rays area of an unnamed Dominican airport late Wednesday …

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The New York Post reported this week that a pilot for a Dominican airline tried to smuggle a stash of cocaine and heroin past customs agents at JFK by strolling through the checkpoint in uniform alongside a group of innocent JetBlue employees, a law-enforcement source told The Post yesterday. Saury Antonio Ortega, 41, who flies …

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