SAN JOSE.- The Inter-American Court of Human Rights (CIDH) on Monday rejected the Dominican Government’s challenge of testimony by the journalist Oscar Lopez Reyes, who believes that university professor and journalist Narciso Gonzalez (Narcisazo) could have committed suicide.

A DT source familiar with the investigation affirms that Gonzalez, whose frail health was widely known, died in the hands of authorities, “who were forced to drop his body from a helicopter into the Caribbean,” for which the Government seeks to protect the identities of those involved.

The disappearance of his body however, is at the center of the criminal investigation which president Leonel Fernandez, upon taking office for the first time in 1996, vowed to conclude until clarifying Gonzalez’s mysterious disappearance, just days after criticizing the late president Joaquin Balaguer’s fraudulent electoral win in 1994.

In a pretrial decision whose full text will be divulged June 28 and 29 in San José, Costa Rica, judge Diego Garcia-Sayán said he decided to accept Lopez’s testimony, based on the impartiality with the Dominican Government and that being a psychiatry or a psychology professional isn’t required to formulate his statement.

The decision comes in the wake of the Commission on Human Rights’ assertion that Lopez had occupied diverse Government posts makes him a subordinate of the State.

Lopez said he has repeatedly told the Justice Ministry that he doesn’t have any data aside from what’s contained in his book “Attempts and censorships in Dominican Republic 1844-2007.”

He added that to testify as an expert witness for the Government, he demanded the widening of the investigation into his belief regarding the alleged kidnapping and tortures.

PARTIAL SOURCE: hoy.com.do