Venezuelan pilots, Dominican mechanics to jail in seized plane case

Santo Domingo.- A Santo Domingo province court on Tuesday sent four Venezuelan pilots and two Dominican mechanics to three months of pretrial detention, indicted for allegedly trying to steal a plane seized in the heels of the Peravia bank fraud case.

Permanent Attention Court judge Josefina Hubiera ruled to remanded the Venezuelans Víctor Álvarez, Alexander Lira, Armando Gutiérrez and Jorge Luis Yzghen to the prison at San Pedro de Macoris (east, together with the Dominicans Yanduel Caraballo and Manuel de Jesus Valdez.

The foreigner José Bacile appeared in the hearing, claiming ownership of the executive jet, and said he had hired the pilots to locate the aircraft in the country. He said he was unaware that the authorities had confiscated the plane.

The pilots’ lawyers said they’ll appeal the judge’s ruling as unfair and called it an example of the country’s “judicial populism.”