12 Army officers and NCOs in new gun-running scandal

www.vheadline.com Posted: Monday, March 03, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) deputy Pedro Castillo has named several army officers as implicated in selling weapons decommissioned from the Metropolitan Police (PM) during the government intervention in November.

Simon Bolivar Infantry 311th battalion, Private Lucio Duran allegedly handed his friends a list of 12 officers and NCOs to safeguard before he was murdered in Vargas ... Castillo told his friends he had received threats after he started selling the weapons to criminal elements in Vargas off his own bat.

• His family convinced him to recover the guns and hand them over … it was while he was trying to get 19 short arms and 2 HK sub machine guns back that he was killed.

Assemblyman Castillo names the officers as: Lt. Colonel Vladimir Padrino Lopez, Major Tomas Ernesto Mendez Goatache, Captains Hector Jose Salgado, Johnny Correa, Silvano Jose Torres and Juan Gabriel Puertas Tovar, Lieutenants Alfredo Jose Garcia Jaramillo, Omar Cecilio Marrero Aponte and Jose Gregorio Meneses Alayon, Staff Sergeant Pedro Javier Teran and Sergeants, Julio Cesar Marcano and Saury Jose Solis Benitez.

Castillo says Private Duran had allegedly underlined the names on official army letterhead. “According friends in the Police Detective Branch, I can say that Duran was murdered by Carlos Augusto Ibarra Ortiz and Alfredo Zambrano … they escaped with 19 9mm pistols, 380 short arms and 3 HK sub machineguns.”