Lawyer says drug kingpin could return to Dominican Republic

Santo Domingo.- Criminal defense lawyer Carlos Balcácer on Monday revealed that convicted drug trafficker Quirino Paulino (El Don) could return to Dominican Republic in March and ruled out that the attacks hurled from US could prompt former president Leonel Fernandez to file a complaint against his former client.

He affirmed that at the time of Paulino’s extradition to the US the Supreme Court handed down its ruling on fear, noting that it had no grounds to do so.

"In Quirino’s specific case, when I headed the defense at the Supreme Court I understood that there were no grounds to extradite him, if fact, that was fear by the Supreme Court which it then denied, now the new Supreme Court Criminal Chamber is denying extradition, they were very different circumstances, then one has to say that its parameter is an exercise depending on the case," the lawyer said, quoted by acento.dom.do.

Balcacer said his client told him he will come to in the country in March. "The call made to Z101 (radio station) was made at night, no sir, that call wasn’t live, it was recorded. However the accusation is a matter I will respect of him, but it could’ve been that regardless of whether he’s currently under a witness protection program, it’s possible he has asked the authorities under the conditions (plea bargaining) to disseminate information which he apparently has voiced publicly."