Washington learned of former Dominican president’s role in professor’s murder

Santo Domingo.- A prominent attorney who represents the family of the disappeared university professor Narciso Gonzalez (Narcisazo) on Tuesday revealed that the U.S. Embassy was aware that the late former president Joaquin Balaguer knew the military and government officials responsible for his kidnapping and presumed murder.

Tomas Castro said the U.S. State Dept. was informed of the details of the kidnapping just days after the presidential elections of May 16, 1994, from information sent by then U.S. ambassador Robert Pastorino.

He said he asked Pastorino’s successor Donna Jean Hrinak to provide a team of FBI agents to investigate the crime, but when they arrived in the country, “were treated as if they were the criminals.”

He said the FBI managed to gather information, including polygraph results from several witnesses, “but as the investigation progressed, the government asked them to leave the country.”

Gonzalez’s disappearance came just days after delivering a scathing speech against Balaguer in the campus of the Santo Domingo State University (UASD), where he accused the then president of “a massive voter fraud” to steal the election from the late PRD presidential candidate Jose Francisco Peña Gomez.

Interviewed by Huchi Lora and Amelia Deschamps on Telesistema, Castro said then National Police Chief Rafael Guerrero Peralta, then Dominican Air Force Chief of Staff Bautista Rojas Gomez, and Balaguer collaborator Claudio de los Santos figure among the names mentioned in the U.S. Embassy cables sent to the State Dept.