Update on the Villa Vásquez barbershop drug planting case
An investigation by a commission of the National Drug Control Agency (DNCD) determined the suspension and sending to the justice of five law enforcement agents that acted in a drug raid on a Villa Vásquez barbershop. The agents are Major Víctor Ignacio Encarnación, Captain Juan de Dios Heredia Martínez, Sargeant Martires Cuello Ramírez and corporal Adan Maurito Rodríguez Pichardo and Air Force recruit Juan Antonio Arias Peguero. They are accused of violating all the protocols during the raid and of planting drugs in the barbershop. The case became a trending topic after the owner of the shop uploaded a surveillance video in his defense showing the operation.
An investigation is ongoing into the participation of Montecristi prosecutor Carmen Lisset Núñez. Núñez acted in the raid on the barbershop and later resigned. There had been speculation she had left the country. The PGR said she was not allowed to leave because a routine alert had been sent to Migration.
The PGR said that the prosecutor’s husband Anderson Gago Manaset was allowed to leave for New York on Monday, 5 August, after being retained for an hour in Migration. The PGR did not establish if Núñez is under arrest now. Lawyers representing the barbershop had notified the PGR that the woman would attempt to leave the country.
Núñez’s lawyer says she was just at the airport to accompany her husband. She told the press that drug traffickers were trying to remove her from office. She defended her innocence.
A surveillance video showed how the law enforcement agents and the prosecutor violated all raid protocols and allegedly planted drugs to customers and in the barbershop. A youth who entered as a supposed customer for a haircut uploaded a second video explaining he acted on instructions of the prosecutor and others to plant the drugs.
The CNCD president, Navy Vice Admiral Félix Alburquerque Comprés, had at first stated the video could be a setup and the barber owner could be tried for defamation. He defended the integrity of the DNCD above all. Alburquerque also defended the Montecristi prosecutor saying: “If you see her résumé, she is a flawless prosecutor; her transparency and her actions are not in question”.
Source: DR1, Elnuevodiario
Aug 16, 2019
Category: DR News |