Fernandez favors special penalties for contract killers

Santo Domingo.- President Leonel Fernández instructed the Security and DefenceCouncil members to create a special mechanism for penalizing cases of contractkillings.

Council member Marino Vinicio Castillo said that during theirpenultimate meeting held at the end of last year, the president expressed theneed to introduce a measure for punishing contract killings with greaterseverity.

According to Castillo, the president suggested that people found to bepromoting this crime should be punished as an example.

“This is to say, remove the masterminds from the relatively comfortableposition they currently enjoys, as accomplices, to make them responsible, whichalthough immaterial, is very dangerous”, he added.

As well as stringent penalties, the president proposed theimplementation of many restrictions on procedural benefits “because these deedsare very delicate”.

The presidential legal advisor made these comments in a telephoneinterview to a local media outlet in response to recent calls by legal experts.