Santo Domingo, RD.
The National Police continues without explaining the circumstances in which Joel Díaz and Elizabeth Muñoz, a married couple who were shot on the Duarte Highway, near Villa Altagracia, were murdered when they returned to Santo Domingo.
The police officers’ version is that they would have mistaken the white Kia vehicle for a car they were chasing.
So far, the police have not said exactly who they were hunting and why they shot the husbands without even saying a word.
Six National Police officers who were part of the police patrol that killed the married couple were arrested in the case. They will have to appear before the Villa Altagracia court of permanent attention on Wednesday to know their degree of coercion.
That patrol consisted of the second lieutenant Victorino Reyes Navarro, Sargeant Domingo Perdomo Reyes, the capes Norkys Rodríguez Jiménez and Ángel de los Santos, as well as the satin Anthony Castro Pérez and Juan Manuel Ogando Solís.
Colonel César Martínez Lora, commander of Operation Villa Altagracia, is also involved in the case, he was suspended until the investigation was conducted. However, he is not among those charged with the murder.
Regarding Martínez Lora, it has been reported that he worked for the National Drug Control Directorate and was allegedly fired for “hiding and then negotiating the drug he seized” while working as an inspector for the DNCD in Higüey.
The police still do not confirm this information, as well as the Minister of the Interior and Police, Jesús Vásquez Martínez, who was asked several times over the weekend without providing answers.
National Police spokesman Miguel Balbuena said they were in the middle of an investigation into the case and would explain in due time who the police officers were looking for when they killed Joel and Elizabeth.
The Interior and Police said on Thursday, April 1, that it had set up an outside committee “to carry out a real and effective purge of the institution to separate personnel who fail to meet the ethical and moral profile and proper training.”
However, the entity did not provide the details of who would make up that outside committee or what their work would look like.
The husbands were buried on Friday afternoon, April 2, amid wide displays of pain and consternation from Dominican society.
They were two pastors who took part in an evangelical campaign in Villa Altagracia. They lived in the sector Cuesta Linda, in Sabana Perdida de Santo Domingo Norte. They had only been married for two months.