Santo Domingo.— With lit candles, banners, and slogans, family members, friends, and acquaintances of 70-year-old Ivonne Handal held a vigil in front of the Criminal Chamber of the Court of Appeals of the National District to demand that Jean Andrés Pumarol be sent to a full trial for the death of the septuagenarian, which occurred on July 23, 2025, in the Naco district.
Handal’s daughters requested the judges of the Second Chamber of the Criminal Court of Appeals to revoke the no-grounds order issued by the Seventh Instruction Court of the National District and allow the case to be heard in a trial court.
“We really want this case to go to a full trial, that it does not definitively remain a preliminary hearing, and that my mother’s murderer can be tried under the relevant conditions and due process,” expressed one of the victim’s daughters.
The relatives acknowledged the mental health condition attributed to the defendant, but maintained that this should not prevent him from facing justice. “There are many people serving sentences in the same situation. So, if justice exists for one, why not for him?”, she questioned.
According to the official expert report from the National Institute of Forensic Sciences (Inacif), Pumarol is in a mental state to stand trial. The relatives also pointed out that in the country’s penitentiary centers there are people with diagnoses of schizophrenia who are serving sentences or facing judicial proceedings.
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The attack that occurred in Naco also left Guillermo Pumarol, the defendant’s father; Teresa Fabián Heredia, Handal’s caregiver; and neighbors Francisco Tezano, Griselda Ozuna, and Victoria Heredia injured.
