Senators named in US$93.0M Brazilian planes scandal

New York.- The mounting scandal over alleged graft in Dominican Republic’s US$93.0 million purchase of nine Brazilian-made Super Tucano planes that launched investigations in Brasilia and Washington, alsoposes fresh questions into former president Leonel Fernandez’s second term in office.

The alleged US$3.5 million bribe to materialize the deal reportedly links at least on senior military officer and at least one pro-government lawmaker.

Among the senators, including some of the opposition PRD party who attended the August 8, 2008, session which approved the purchase figure Tommy Galan, César Díaz Filpo, Reinaldo Pared, Cristina Lizardo, Amílcar Romero, Diego Aquino Acosta, Charles Mariotti, Luis René Canaan, Rubén Darío Cruz, Jesús Cruz Torres, Amarilis Santana, Félix Nova and Francisco Peña.

The senators who didn’t attend were Félix Vásquez, Roberto Rodríguez, Andrés Bautista García, Noé Sterling Vásquez, Heinz Vieluf, Francis Vargas and Dionis Sánchez.

Among the guests and experts allegedly invited to the session figured generals Hugo R. González Borell, Pedro Peña Antonio and Pedro Valenzuela.

Interviewed last week by elnuevodiario.com.do in Union City, N.J., Santiago senator and former Chamber of Deputies president Julio Cesar Valentin said he was the first lawmaker to publicly request an investigation, now being conducted in the U.S., Brazil and Argentina.