Identifier | Created | Classification | Origin |
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05SANTODOMINGO799 | 2005-02-16 18:15:00 | CONFIDENTIAL | Embassy Santo Domingo |
This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available. |
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 05 SANTO DOMINGO 000799 |
1. (U) Following is the twelfth in our series on the first
year of the administration of Dominican President Leonel Fernandez: Narcotics trafficker Paulino is likely to finger some senior Dominican politicians and military officers for complicity, for taking bribes or at least for deliberately turning a blind eye as he made millions of dollars from drugs. Quirino Paulino, the Cynosure of Dominican Justice - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - (U) With his baby face and balding head, Quirino Paulino Castillo does not at first glance look like the centering point for the orientation of Dominican justice. A Supreme Court verdict on Friday, February 18, will be decisive about the meaning of Paulino,s narcotics trafficking case for the viability of the Dominican justice system, with important implications for Dominican politics and for Dominican society as a whole. (U) The Dominican National Directorate for Drug Control (DNCD) with advice and guidance from its U.S. counterpart, the Drug Enforcement Administration arrested Paulino on December 18, shortly after they had stopped a flatbed truck on a main thoroughfare in downtown Santo Domingo. The truck was loaded with 1387 kilos of neatly stacked bundles of cocaine. Monitored telephone calls had given away the game, providing evidence that Quirino, labeled "the Don" by his confederates, had arranged the shipment. (C)) This was the largest drug bust in Dominican history. The success in bilateral enforcement cooperation led to a rapid request from the Federal District Court for the Southern District of New York for the extradition of Paulino, processed by the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Embassy and delivered to the Dominican Secretariat of Foreign Affairs in two weeks, a speed without precedent since extraditions were initiated back in 1998. New York wants Paulino because New York City was the intended destination of the cocaine; DEA and the rest of the U.S. law enforcement community additionally want Paulino out of the Dominican Republic to keep him from bribing his way out of the charges, to get him to talk, and to keep him alive. The Shape of Future Extraditions - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - (SBU) The Paulino case is a big one not only because of the size of the haul but also because it is, by coincidence of timing, a precedent-setting case for future extradition cases. The 90 extraditions to the United States granted since 1998 were recommended by Dominican attorneys general and approved by Dominican presidents under Napoleonic penal procedures dating from the early days of the Republic. Dominican courts had almost nothing to do with the extraditions. But with U.S. technical assistance and advice, the Dominicans have in recent years begun an overhaul of their justice system, with the Dominican Congress voting a new criminal procedures code that since last September limits the discretion of the executive and provides defendants with more clearly defined procedural processes intended to reinforce constitutional rights. One central change in the new Code was to assign to the 5-judge Penal Chamber of the Supreme Court the authority to review requests for extradition and give it jurisdiction over oral hearings in each case. (C) Well aware of the enduring importance of this case, Dominican Attorney General Francisco Dominguez Brito was determined to make the best possible arguments. He sought and obtained from U.S. authorities within days an additional affidavit with more specific information concerning the U.S. based charges. The USG furnished case law from other jurisdictions in which extraditions had been granted, including Colombia, to strengthen the presentation of the case against Paulino. Paulino,s attorneys obtained a continuance of several days in order to study the additional information, but on February 4 the Penal Chamber heard the final arguments. A Dominican government attorney represented U.S. interests in reciprocity with U.S. procedures, an arrangement challenged by the defense. The Chamber gave itself two weeks, until February 18, to render its verdict on the extradition and related issues. (U) Paulino has been held almost continuously at the DNCD rather than at the public jail of Najayo. He protested this decision early in the process, telling the Chamber in an outburst while leaving the court, " I am losing all my color because I haven,t seen the sun since I was arrested." His defense obtained an order from a lower court mandating his transfer to Najayo, where he could meet his attorneys in private. The executive branch complied, placing him in the holding area for fugitives subject to extradition proceedings. Within days, however, Attorney General Dominguez Brito ordered Paulino returned to the DNCD and told the press of "credible evidence of an international conspiracy" against Paulino. An apparently shaken Paulino told his lawyers not to contest the move. (SBU) The Paulino extradition is a test for the ethics and credibility of the Penal Chamber, the Supreme Court, and the whole Dominican justice system. Paulino,s family and supporters have used the card of "national sovereignty" and maligned the intentions of the United States. A comment in passing by a senior member of the Embassy team about "U.S. concerns about Dominican justice" sparked diatribes in the media and the press; the Ambassador used a press encounter at the presidential palace to express confidence both in the Dominican justice system and in the Embassy official. The public relations office of the Supreme Court immediately produced an eerie half-page newspaper ad reproducing in shadow tones the newspaper accounts of the Ambassador,s remarks and bold-faced reprints of editorial defenses of the Supreme Court. Ever eager for a story, journalists twisted comments by Supreme Court Chief Justice Jorge Subero Isa to imply that the Penal Chamber,s decision could be appealed to the 16-judge plenum of the Court. Both the Attorney General and Subero Isa refuted this interpretation. (SBU) President Fernandez supports the extradition request. Cardinal Nicholas de Jesus Lopez Rodriguez and papal nuncio Timothy Broglio have publicly endorsed sending Paulino to the United States for trial. (C) Will the Penal Chamber approve the extradition? Domnguez Brito (strictly protect) says that they will and cites the reputation for integrity of two (" . . .no, three") of the five members. Intelligence indicates that efforts may be under way to sound out judges about possible payoffs; amounts proffered could be substantial, considering other rumors that the defense attorneys are receiving between US$ 3 million and US$ 5 million. Our impression is that there is a better chance in the Penal Chamber than in the plenary, where reputations are shakier and some politically involved justices might tend to want to keep Paulino in the country, so as to contain political fallout. The Underside of the Rock - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - (SBU) Political fallout is a very immediate consideration. Paulino was based in the province of Elias Pia, on the central border with Haiti. He comes from a poor family, but, to hear his mother tell it, "He saved and invested everything he made." As his fortune grew, Paulino was buying support and becoming a benefactor to the province. Assets seized by the Dominican authorities were estimated at a value of some 3 billon pesos (US$ 100 million). They included bank accounts, cash, three gasoline stations, a dairy farm, a rice bill, an oilseed farm, a ranch, a distributor of cooking gas, a motel, a helicopter pad and two helicopters. He had purchased one chopper from the notorious political fixer "Pepe" Goico, bagman for the lavish payments made by Ramon Baez of the now-failed Baninter to support the presidential travel of President Hiplito Mejia. (Goico,s misuse of the Baninter credit card was so flagrant that Baez sued him and got him cashiered, although only briefly.) (U) Given the scale of his operations, Paulino must have been working with Colombian cocaine wholesalers and bringing the drugs across the border from Haiti, probably by helicopter. He had traveled at least three times to the United States over the last year or so, by his own admission to the Court. The sworn affidavit from the U.S. court outlined one encounter arranged by phone, where surveillance agents saw Paulino accept delivery in Santo Domingo of a duffle bag said to hold $500,000 in cash. (SBU) Paulino was driving a white Mercedes 500 sedan when he was arrested. The car had been imported duty-free using an authorization issued to Senate Vice-President Csar Matas of Mejia,s Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD). Matas told the press he knew nothing about it; he had transferred the authorization to a dealer (a transaction that happens to be against the law). (C) Within days papers published photos of Mejia,s chief of staff Sergio Grulln and his wife from a ceremony in Elias Pia where Paulino had gotten recognition as an "outstanding citizen." In recent weeks President Fernandez and "reformista" presidential candidate Eduardo Estrella have separately told us that advisors had urged them to meet Paulino because of his standing in the province - - and each was clearly relieved not to have done so. Unfriendly voices in the Dominican press commented that former president Hipolito Mejia,s trip via Miami to Mexico to attend the Caribbean baseball series in early February had the additional purpose of demonstrating that the USG had not suspended his U.S. visa. (C) And then there is the question of Paulino,s military career. He was appointed a lieutenant in irregular fashion in March 2002, almost probably in return for cash payments to someone in the military hierarchy. In May 2003, President Mejia signed a decree promoting him to the rank of captain. Although the press has not dug up the fact, Paulino,s farms in Elias Pia were providing military outposts there with provisions, free of charge - - an arrangement that was suspended by the new army leadership within weeks after the inauguration of Leonel Fernandez. Paulino was "separated and passed to the reserves" in October 2004, one of many military officers dismissed after Leonel Fernandez took office. (C) These are only the first of the connections available in this case. Everyone expects more. Secretary of the Armed Forces Sigfrido Pared Perez insists to all that he will not hesitate to investigate any links to Paulino revealed in the interrogations. He already has information about the ties to Paulino of some active duty officers, and he is likely to wait to take action until the traditional annual announcements of military changes scheduled for February 28. Cynics think that most politicians can probably bounce out of this one, the way the Senate vice-president has done. But since no one really believes that Paulino was smart enough to have done this largely on his own, there are almost certainly newly wealthy Dominicans - - several of them probably in the military officer corps - - and some seriously violent Colombians who would prefer that Paulino not talk. Crime - - Orientation and Disorientation - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - (SBU) In a larger sense, the Paulino case offers an orientation to the issue of corruption and crime in Dominican society as a whole. Newspapers and the Fernandez administration have made much of "a crime wave afflicting Dominican society" since mid-2004, even though statistics do not bear this out. Commentators assert that narcotics traffickers are to blame. "There are 200,000 dealers in the country," commented new Police Chief Prez Snchez shortly after assuming office. It is not clear to us whether drug use has indeed grown as quickly as the administration is implying, but the topic is now open for discussion. (U) Distrust of the police and the authorities is widespread in poor neighborhoods, with good reason (see our Human Rights Report). In several recent developments some of those communities have openly supported acknowledged criminals. A small band from Elias Pia demonstrated outside the Supreme Court, saluting Paulino as a philanthropist. One of the protesters was the former governor of the province, who was jailed briefly for her actions. Six weeks ago, after rivals shot down a well-known drug dealer in a poor Santo Domingo neighborhood, a large crowd scandalized the country by carrying his flag-draped coffin through the public streets. And in Azua, a gang leader accused of the assassination of a local radio journalist eluded capture for months because the populace collaborated to keep him out of sight. (C) In private President Fernandez for a time pointed a finger at Mejia,s PRD, which as a large populist party is indeed strong in the poor neighborhoods. But we see no credible evidence that the badly bruised and still disorganized PRD is promoting thuggishness. (SBU) The Quirino Paulino case offers the Fernandez administration an opening to take concrete action against narcotics trafficking and crime, as a step toward establishing credibility for the administration as a whole when the President talks about ending corruption. The February 18 decision will provide the judicial reaction to Paulino; if Paulino is then packed off expeditiously to safe and unreachable interrogations in the United States, he may be able to provide further information to orient the Dominican executive, as well. - - - - - - (U) Cynosure. (Latin transcription of Greek for"Dog,s Tail" - - the constellation of Ursa Minor, containing Polaris, the North Star). . . 2. figurative. Something that serves for guidance or direction; a guiding star., - - Oxford English Dictionary. 2. (U) Drafted by Michael Meigs. 3. (U) This report and others in our series can be consulted on our SIPRNET site http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/wha/santodomingo< /a> along with extensive other material. HERTELL |