Santo Domingo.- The plastic surgeon Edgar Contreras, involved in the death of at least two of his patients, conducted a procedure eight years ago in the nose of the Puerto Rican fugitive Jose Figueroa Agosto, known then as Cristian Almonte, the physician said yesterday after being questioned in the National District Office of the Prosecutor.

Contreras revealed that he was Figueroa’s friend -as any doctor with their patient-and together with his lawyer Carlos Jose Ariza noted that despite the formal interrogation, he cannot testify given their patient-doctor relationship. “They simply asked me how I knew Figueroa Agosto, Cristian, I simply provided the details, I said Cristian was my patient, he and his wife Leavy” (Nin Batista).

“I realized a surgery (Figueroa) on his nose eight years ago,” said the specialist.

“Look there are things here, the one who’s being investigated now is Cristian, Agosto or another patient. I cannot (identify) because of professional confidentiality, of ethics, I cannot say that this or that person, unless that person authorizes me,”

Contreras said when asked if he practiced surgeries on any one of the group of his favorite women known as the Puerto Rican’s “harem,” adding that “the Office of Prosecutor will know if my declarations are still important.”

The interrogation comes one day after the Office of the Prosecutor interviewed Dolphy Peláez, sister of the incarcerated Mary Pelaez, and whose lawyer affirmed that the former may testify as a prosecution witness.

Contreras has been accused of malpractice in the deaths of the ex consul Maria de los Angeles and the journalist Isabel Vargas.