DOMINICAN OFFICIAL RAILS THE U.S. EMBASSY'S "STUPID" PROTEST ON EXTRADITION

SANTO DOMINGO.- The Presidency's Narcotics Adviser yesterday said the
United States embassy disrespects the government when "through a
stupid diplomatic note" attributes responsibility for a Supreme Court
sentence that declined to extradite a Dominican implicated in a
drug-trafficking case in that nation.

Marino Vinicio Castillo complained that the U.S. diplomatic
representation didn't proceed in the same way during ex president
Hipolito Mejia's administration when, according to the official, the
extradition treaty "was a dead letter."

"The United States embassy has made a demand that's not noble, when
it should have respect for the government of Leonel Fernandez," the
Cabinet level minister said, and noted that it has been this
administration that has created the bases so that the figure of
extradition is respected, especially in the drug-trafficking cases.

He said the Penal Procedural Code in effect stipulates that it's the
Supreme Court which decides on the extradition of a Dominican and not
the Executive Branch, to respect the separation of State powers. "How
are they going to ask the Executive in a disrespectful manner on an
extradition question which another power of the State has decided."

Castillo said the complaint comes "from the same embassy that didn't
say not even half a word when Hipolito Mejia issued two decrees
motivated to deny the extradition of a citizen from Moca (north)
implicated in the Quirino case," of which he said didn't have many
details. "To him (Mejia) they never said anything because he was in
the coalition of Iraq."

He added that Fernandez hasn't refused to comply with a single
extradition request.