Reporters grill one of the country’s ‘owners’

Santo Domingo.- The deputy and business leader Juan Hubieres exploded in insults at the Chamber of Deputies on Thursday, and denied taking part in Tuesday’s traffic chaos unleashed by passenger vehicles and accused journalists of taking bribes to smear his image.

The also head of the bus owners union Fenatrano said he tried to halt the shutdown by calling the protester’s leaders at 10am, when he learned that the incident that began near 7am. "I told some media which contacted me that day that i did not support the blocking of traffic because no one has the right to interfere with someone else’s job."

He said it was the Metropolitan Transit Authority (AMET) which broke the law by placing wheel clamps on 20 public transport vehicles and doing "business" sith "chop shop" to sell the parts of impounded cars.

Journalists

When reporters asked him about the massive traffic jam which lasted nearly 4 hours, he accused them of being anarchists who” extort money and get paid” to publish certain information. "What happens is that these journalists get paid and you can’t talk to no one."

Peeved by Hubieres’ insults and profanity, a TV reporter asked her colleagues to halt the interview: "You’ve gone too far, turn off the microphones, tell me how much you have paid me?. You are insolent, reckless …"

Hubieres, one of the country’s notorious “owners,” just smiled and said: “Your are a handsome woman.”

Hubieres’ thugs in Fenatrano were blamed for the death of two women in a bus they had torched during a transport strike.