Flap over presidential pardons for drug convicts gets Prisons chief fired

Santo Domingo.- President Leonel Fernandez fired Prisons director Roberto Ovando Prestol Monday morning, and replaced him with Mario Acosta, via Decree 36-12.

The firing comes just days after the ex official allegedly recommended presidential pardons for two convicts serving time at Najayo Prison for drug trafficking and forgery, but rejected by the Clemency Commission.

The president of the Penitentiary Pastoral, the priest Fray Arístides Jiménez Richardson, had denounced that the Prisons Directorate’s failure to provide the documents required on inmates who sought presidential pardons, had interfered with the work of the Clemency Commission.

The prelate had warned that the penitentiary system’s officials who failed to provide those documents will be taken to court.

“The officials of the Prisons Directorate or the new penitentiary management model who don’t provide the information when we request it will go to the courts,” Richardson said, when announcing the Commission had rejected pardons for the two people Ovando recommended.