SANTO DOMINGO.-The Ministry of Defense received from the Public Ministry the formal request to release the two non-commissioned officers and three enlisted men arrested for being linked to an alleged criminal network dedicated to the trafficking of undocumented Haitians across the border.
The ERD members were identified as second lieutenants José Dolores Hernández Merejildo and Julio César Pujols Montero; Sergeants Major Rafael Contreras and Rafael Zabala Peña and Corporal Sandro Liranzo Javier, who were arrested along with 10 other people who were part of the dismantled network through 16 raids in the so-called Border Operation.
According to the accusation file, the alleged network that operated on the northern border, specifically in Montecristi, managed to introduce into Dominican territory “hundreds of Haitian immigrants thanks to the complicity of the arrested members of the Army.”
According to the investigation carried out by the Public Ministry, the leaders and members of the network were dedicated to financing, facilitating and transporting migrants through motorcycles and buses, who were taken to clandestine collection centers.
Coercion
The Office of Permanent Attention of the judicial district of Montecristi fixed for next Friday the knowledge of the measure of coercion to the 15 accused, to whom the Public Ministry requests 18 months of preventive detention and the declaration of complexity of the process.
The request for the measure of coercion was deposited by the interim prosecutor of Montecristi, Dinorah Liberato Rojas, against the 15 defendants for the violation of the criminal offense of smuggling of migrants, provided for and sanctioned in articles 2 and 7 (literal b, c, d and e) of Law 137-03, on Smuggling of Migrants and Human Trafficking; Articles 265 and 266 of the Penal Code, which classify human trafficking and smuggling as a crime.
The arrested civilians were identified by the Public Ministry as Eddy Rafael Cordero Villanueva and Osiris Rafael Estévez Fortuna, who have been identified as leaders of this migrant smuggling network from Haiti.
Also, Elbio José Castillo Martínez, Hilario Antonio Gómez Paul, Santo Valerio Contreras, Anelby Susaña Guzmán, Jesús María Cerda Acosta, Anelsy Escarlex Cordero Núñez and María Rafaela Batista de Cordero.
military
— Subjected
With the arrest of the five members of the Army linked to the immigrant trafficking network, there are seven soldiers subdued for malicious acts during the performance of their duties so far this February.
ERD refuses to refer
Reaction. The Army of the Dominican Republic (ERD) refused to refer to the arrest of five of its members linked to an alleged illegal trafficking network.
The ERD’s director of public relations, Colonel Óscar Ares, told EL DÍA reporters that he was not authorized to comment on the case. “I cannot give you statements.
By the rules of the institution, no member is authorized to give statements to any media. The only people who can give statements are the incumbents,” he said.
