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- BBC News World
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Updated 6 hours
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image source, Getty Images
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The Minister of the Environment of the Dominican Republic, Orlando Jorge Mera, was shot dead on Monday in his office, the government of the island country reported.
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“In the morning hours, the minister lost his life when he was attacked in his office with a firearm,” the Presidency of the Republic said in a statement.
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The President of the Dominican Republic, Luis Abinader, expressed his regret in a tweet: “Rest in peace, dear friend.” He also decreed three days of national mourning.
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The author of the attack was identified as Fausto Miguel Cruz De La Mota. “He was a personal friend of the dead minister,” said the spokesman for the presidency, Homero Figueroa.
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“The Public Ministry handles the initial theory that it was a murder and delve into the investigations to determine the objective circumstances of the same and to present charges against the accused before the courts,” said the Attorney General’s Office.
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Jorge Mera, 55, was the son of former President Salvador Jorge Blanco.
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The family of the deceased also issued a statement explaining that the minister had received his murderer in his office, whom he confirmed was “a childhood friend.”
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The relatives thanked the shows of support and assured that they forgive the author of the acts.
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image source, The Presidency of the Dominican Republic
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What is known about the attack?
The first investigations indicate that Miguel Cruz was received by the minister in his office on Monday.
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Juan de Dios Liberata, councilor of the municipality of Sabaneta, was in the lobby of Jorge Mera’s office waiting to be received, the EFE news agency reported.
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The official reported that a man he entered the office alone and then seven shots were heard.
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Liberata explained that after the officials went out to the Ministry’s green area to take shelter, several more shots were heard inside the building.
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Cruz fled after the shooting and took refuge in a church, where hours later he turned himself in to the National Police, in the presence of members of the Public Ministry.
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image source, Reuters
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Cruz turned himself in to police at a nearby church.
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cross is a businessman owner of a construction company and other companies from different sectorsaccording to Dominican media.
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They point out that he is the son of a general who belonged to the air force during the government of former President Salvador Jorge Blanco, the victim’s father.
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Who was Jorge Mera?
Orlando Jorge Mera had been in office since August 2020, when the government of Abinader.
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A native of Santiago de los Caballeros (north), Jorge Mera belonged to a family linked to politics.
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His father was president of the Dominican Republic between 1982 and 1986, his sister Dilia Leticia is vice minister in the Administrative Ministry of the Presidency and his son Orlando Jorge Villegas is a deputy.
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In 2014, together with current President Abinader, he co-founded the Modern Revolutionary Party (PRM), successor to the Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD) and with which they won the presidential elections in 2020.
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Upon assuming the Environment portfolio that year, the minister marked the recovery of protected areas, enforcing environmental law and fighting climate change as the main challenges.
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Since 2004 he presented the television program ‘Líderes’, a weekly space for analysis and interviews, and was also the political delegate of the PRM before the Central Electoral Board.
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He was married to the Dominican ambassador to Brazil, Patricia Villegas, and had two children, one of them a deputy.
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