NewsWhore
01-14-2010, 02:20 PM
In today's El Caribe, lawyer Marisol Vicens Bello comments that government officials remain untouchable in high-profile criminal cases. She mentions that while some powerful business and society figures have been sentenced, we have yet to see the first sentencing of a government official who allowed or was an accomplice in these acts. Neither have there been any serious investigations nor sentencing in response to the endless claims of illegal acts they are said to have committed. "Unfortunately a government job doesn't just represent a mechanism for becoming rich or social climbing - it is a ticket for being above the law", she writes.
She says that the recent Figueroa Agosto scandal seems to follow this same course, where there are only judgments for ordinary citizens. "How to explain that the investigation into a network that involved the moving of so much money and illegal sale of drugs nationwide so far has only led to the arrest of civilians who appear to be but fronts for the baron and his assistants?" she writes.
She comments that an explanation is also missing on how this network was able to secure multiple Dominican identities, identities from Dominican security organizations, official license plates, obstruction of extradition processes, contracts with government departments, "when these people did not have any experience of doing the jobs for which they were contracted and received the protection that only the authorities could provide".
"It would not be the first time that we are left without answers," she writes. "The untouchables of yesterday, cannot remain so forever. The information that citizens are receiving makes it difficult to swallow the pill they want us to swallow. The time should come when there needs to be justice served for them, too," she concludes.
More... (http://www.dr1.com/index.html#9)
She says that the recent Figueroa Agosto scandal seems to follow this same course, where there are only judgments for ordinary citizens. "How to explain that the investigation into a network that involved the moving of so much money and illegal sale of drugs nationwide so far has only led to the arrest of civilians who appear to be but fronts for the baron and his assistants?" she writes.
She comments that an explanation is also missing on how this network was able to secure multiple Dominican identities, identities from Dominican security organizations, official license plates, obstruction of extradition processes, contracts with government departments, "when these people did not have any experience of doing the jobs for which they were contracted and received the protection that only the authorities could provide".
"It would not be the first time that we are left without answers," she writes. "The untouchables of yesterday, cannot remain so forever. The information that citizens are receiving makes it difficult to swallow the pill they want us to swallow. The time should come when there needs to be justice served for them, too," she concludes.
More... (http://www.dr1.com/index.html#9)