46 Police dismissed on criminal accusations

SANTO DOMINGO. The Executive Power ordered the cancelation of 46 police agents, six of whom are alleged to be members of a gang inside the institution that hired out as killers and tried to kill the journalist and lawyer Jordi Veras.

Doctor Negro Veras will give his opinion today.

Among the police separated from the National Police there are five majors, six captains, six first lieutenants, 11 second lieutenants, and 18 enlisted men. Some of those separated from service were arraigned on charges.

Among the dismissals that were ordered are the superior officers Apolinar Mojica Hernandez, Jose Eudy Ubri Diaz, and Cristino Batista Roa. The latter, together with Sergeant Major Halpis Ransses Reyes are the two accused as the persons who used the Police password to enter Data Credito with the idea of obtaining personal information on the lawyer Jordi Veras and delivering it to a gang headed by Francisco Carela who had the contract to kill the journalist.

Others separated from the ranks of the Police are captains Amancio Ramirez Marte, Felix A. Valenzuela Amador, Narciso Canario Ramirez, Osvaldo de Leon Garcia, Juan Antonio Rosario Polanco, Ramon Campos Ramirez, Roberto Morel Sanchez.

Likewise, there are the first lieutenants Francisco Cuevas Santana, Jacobo Ventura Veras, Ricardo Perez Mateo, Abel Medina Medina, and Manuel de Jesus Medina Cuevas and Tito Lorenzo Aquino who was forcefully retired.

The second lieutenants Jose A. Rodriguez Caceres, Marcelino Alberto Rosario Genao, Lonel Porfirio Andres Almonte, Hipolito Payano Ramirez, Nelson Antonio Ramos Marte, Ramon Pichardo Cleto, Silvio Antonio Lopez Duarte, Fernanda Julieta Garcia Urbaez, Antonio Carmona Figueroa, Pedro Lopez Peña, Tomas Martinez de Paula, and Noel Jose Rosario Rodriguez.

The sergeants major dismissed were Julio Ernesto de la Rosa Mateo, Alfredo Pacheco Caraballo, Castillo Maria Pinales Garcia, Rogelio Antonio Vargas Rosario, Halpis Ransses Reyes Genao, and Ada Francisca Lugo Gomez. Also Sergeant Jose Luis Reyes Perez, as well as corporals Jorge Luis Reyes Rojas, Orfelio Gomez Rosa, and the privates, Radhames de Dios Lizardo, Aldrin Neftali Matos Estrella, and Melvin Rafael Curiel Breton, Andrade Figuereo, Fernando Feliz Ramirez, Joselito Laureano and Roni Michael Duarte Araujo. It will be remembered that the Second Lieutenant Fernanda Julieta Garcia Urbaez refused to answer the high-level commission charged with investigating the assassination attempt on journalist Jordi Veras and she did the same thing with the District Attorney of Santiago, Yenni Berenice Reynoso.

At that time, the chief of the National Police, Major General Jose Armando Polanco Gomez, asked by the Diario Libre regarding the attitude of the officer said : "This woman is not worthy to wear the uniform and therefore has no place in the Police and will be separated from the ranks of the institution". He warned that he would not permit acts of corruption, no matter what rank. He said that the condition of being a superior officer is not synonymous with impunity in the Police, while at the same time he made it clear that the dismissal of the 46 agents is a message that in his term in office "we will not tolerate bad conduct".

During his time in the Police force, that high ranking officer, Cristino Batista Roa, was mentioned on several occasions in relation to acts of corruption such as extortion, the Jordi case, and in the murder of Lieutenant Colonel Virgilio Casilla Minaya, killed on 21 January of this year by several men. Batista Roa was working in Las Caobas and there he was accused by merchants of criminal association in order to steal, assault, and commit other crimes. Some two years ago his name was mentioned with the group of police that supposedly was engaged in receiving money from the hands of the owners of drug sales points.