Dominican leader “sacking” the country, journalist in hacking probe says

Santo Domingo.- The journalist and TV producer Guillermo Gomez affirmed Sunday that president Leonel Fernandez and the Dominican Government has been “sacking” the country and seeks to destroy him and his family with a “moral firing squad.”

“Why are you doing it Mr. President, why are you sacking the country and trying to destroy me and my family with a “moral firing squad? Is it because you fear what this humble journalist is going to divulge about your corrupt government,?” Gomez said in his program, Aeromundo, on Colorvision.

He said the Government-ordered searches and confiscations of equipment at his news Website elsiglo21.com, his offices and his residence aren’t going to halt the alleged acts of corruption by the current Administration that he’ll publish between March and April.

Shadowy figure

Gomez, who rose from anonymity to wealth and fame during the Administration of Jorge Salvador Blanco (1982-1986) of the opposition PRD party, also cited Frank Cabral Calacagno (Calcaño), one of the country’s most shadow figures, allegedly involved in illegal tapping of phone conversations for decades.

“If someone “meets with hackers, it’s the Justice Ministry, such as Mr. Frank Cabral,” he said, adding that “they’ll not be able to shut me up.”

“What the government has done is a major persecution against the freedom of expression and diffusion of thought,” Gomez said, referring to Friday’s search and seizures in his house, and Website and lawyers’ offices, and a villa in the resort Casa de Campo.

On Saturday the Santo Domingo Office of the Prosecutor, in a terse statement, said the searches stem from complaints of hacking and of illegal wiretaps by people it didn’t identify.