Court acquits 3 in warplanes bribes case

Santo Domingo.- The investigation for the alleged payment of bribes for the purchase of eight Super Tucano aircraft by the Dominican Government, which began in 2013 with the arrest in Brazil of a sales consultant for the Brazilian Aeronautical Company (Embraer), reached this Monday to its partial end with the acquittal of those accused of receiving them.

The former Minister of Defense, retired Major General Pedro Rafael Peña Antonio; Colonel Carlos Piccini Núñez, former director of Special Projects of the Dominican Air Force (FAD); and businessman Daniel Aquino Hernández were found not guilty of receiving payments of some 3.5 million dollars, allegedly to broker the purchase of these aircraft, acquired in 2009.

During the reading of the sentence, the magistrates Arlín Ventura, Leticia Martínez and Milagros Ramírez, of the Third Collegiate Court of the National District, determined that it was illogical that a bank transfer approved in 2009 had been to comply with what Peña Antonio had done since 2007.