In landmark ruling Dominican Republic court sends a judge to jail

Santo Domingo.- In anunprecedented development in the Dominican Republic, a sitting judge has beensent to three months of pretrial detention on charges of taking bribes to handdown favorable rulings.

The National District AppellateCourt 2nd penal chamber remanded judge Awilda Reyes and former judgeFrancisco Arias to Najayo prison near 2am Wednesday, in a case of widespreadcorruption and murders for hire attributed to Pedro Brand city councilmanEricson de los Santos, who’s also on pretrial detention.

Judge Ramon HoracioGonzalez announced the ruling after a hearing that lasted more than 12 hours, andcited calligraphy tests on a receipt allegedly issued by the president of theSupreme Court chief justice Mariano Germán.

He said his ruling isalso based on the testimony from two of the three prosecution witnesses broughtby the office of the special anticorruptionprosecutor (Pepca).

"They declaredthat their presence of judge Awilda Reyes Beltre in the office and in thepresence of the Supreme Court chief justice, admitted receiving said sum ofmoney from the then council director (Valera) and they went to the residence ofthe judge to seek 175 bills pf 2,000 pesos, for the release of the Peter Brand citycouncilman," says the ruling read by the court clerk.

The ruling concludes thatevidence and data have emerged which might prove the guilt of the accused.