Embattled journalist takes death threats seriously

Santo Domingo.- Dominican Republic’s most prominent investigative journalist Nuria Piera Monday night said she feels threatened and defenseless upon learning that senator Wilton Guerrero denounced a plot on her life. The ruling PLD legislator from Peravia province said the threat comes from people of the opposition PRD party linked to drug trafficking.

In a press conference held by the Dominican Journalists Guild, Piera received the support of the media and members of civil society, but affirmed feeling threatened and concerned for the first time.

She said she doesn’t know if she’s threatened most by the Government sector, or by the opposition. “One of the groups can do something to blame it on the other.”

She recalled in tears the manner in which her father died, after precisely his father receiving death threats that soon materialized.

Piera, who vowed to continue her work as she has been doing thus far, said she was surprised by the lawyer for retired colonel Pedro Julio (Pepe) Goico, who stated that it was strange that the journalist wasn’t in the National District Office of the Prosecutor, where his client interrogated into an alleged plot to destabilize Haiti’s Government.

As to ruling PLD party senator Felix Bautista, the journalist said she has never received aany call from him and all documents published in her program have been meticulously investigated by her production team.