“We want to express our deepest condolences,” President Luis Abinader’s office wrote in a statement.
It was also the President’s Office that came up with the information that the perpetrator was a close friend of the murdered minister.
It was at around 8 pm on Monday evening, Swedish time, that the reports came from the authorities in the capital Santo Domingo that Orlando Jorge Mera, Minister with responsibility for issues of the environment and natural resources, had been murdered in his office.
More must have been sitting in a weekly meeting when the perpetrator stormed into the office and opened fire.
“A tragedy”
The police sent an elite force to the building – where several ministries are located – and at 21 o’clock Swedish time it was announced that the perpetrator had been arrested.
“We are saddened by what has happened,” the Ministry of the Environment wrote in a short statement.
Mera has been a minister in the government since August 2020. In addition to his government assignment, Mera was also a lawyer.
Bartolomé Pujals at the government’s cabinet for innovation writes that he mourns his colleague.
“His death is a tragedy. We Dominicans must stick together and find a way to live in peace. No more violence “, he writes.