Santo Domingo.- Cardinal Nicolas de Jesus Lopez Rodriguez yesterday said he agrees with creating special courts with anonymous (“faceless”) judges and prosecutors, to try drug trafficking cases without endangering their lives and prevent organized crime’s threats from influencing their decisions. “The country cannot allow a group of criminals and narcotics traffickers who want to impose their laws of violence and death on the basis of threats and blackmails.”

Santo Domingo’s Archbishop, calling drug trafficking “increasingly more insolent and challenging,” said it’s correct to transfer to the capital’s courts the case of the Paya, Bani killings and others from places where the judges and prosecutors can be more vulnerable to threats and pressures. “These people don’t respect anybody, they’re wiling to eliminate anyone who confronts them, and so I feel there’s a need to act to preserve the prosecutors’ and judges’ lives.”

The prelate praised the authorities’ latest actions against drug trafficking and said he’s under the impression that the head of the Drugs Control Agency, Rolando Rosado is a “serious man, who acts correctly to confront drug trafficking.”