Dominican Republic to Seek Arrest of Fugitive French Pilots

The Dominican Republic will request the arrest of two French pilots who slipped out of the country and returned home after being sentenced to 20 years for drug running, the attorney general said Tuesday.

"We are proceeding with a request for an international arrest warrant for the pilots involved," Attorney General Francisco Dominguez Brito said in a statement, after the pilots turned up in France saying they had come home to clear their names.

The men, 55-year-old Pascal Fauret and 56-year-old Bruno Odos, were free pending appeal but barred from leaving the country.

Dominguez Brito said Dominican authorities were reviewing international protocols to force the pilots to return and face justice.

"We are in contact with the French authorities, not only to determine how they escaped the country and their accomplices, but also to make them assume their responsibility in (the Dominican Republic), regardless of any other cases that may arise in France," he said.

He also criticized the court for allowing them to remain free pending appeal.

"It doesn't make the slightest sense that a foreigner accused of drug trafficking be granted a relaxed form of restrictions... because this is a person who without a doubt will escape," he said.

The pilots were arrested in March 2013 along with two other Frenchmen, Nicolas Pisapia and Alain Castany, as they were about to take off from the Dominican resort of Punta Cana.

Authorities said they were preparing to leave on a mid-size Dassault Falcon 50 jet with 26 suitcases containing 680 kilograms (1,500 pounds) of cocaine.

All four, who were in custody for 15 months while their case was being heard, say they are innocent. Pisapia and Castany are still in the Dominican Republic.

At a press conference in Paris organized by their lawyers, Fauret said Monday he and his co-accused were targeted "just because we're French."

The French foreign ministry said the men had received no government help in leaving.

The men traveled by boat to the Franco-Dutch island of Saint Martin, then by plane on to Martinique and then France -- though how exactly they managed to slip from the Dominican Republic remains a mystery.