Post by scumbuster on May 31, 2021 8:22:26 GMT -5
Maduro Clears Political Jails by Sending Them to Prison
CARACAS -- The Nicolas Maduro regime has ordered that almost all of the 300-plus political prisoners in Venezuela be remanded to the custody of the Justice Ministry, emptying the notorious The Directorate General of Military Counterintelligence (DGCIM) and Bolivarian National Intelligence Service (SEBIN) prisons in Caracas after a Coronavirus death.
The decree, made public last week, is dated May. 12. However, only days before something momentous took place in a Maduro prison for political prisoners.
Alirio Ochoa, the elderly father of a lieutenant, was detained in DGCIM Boleita when he died of Covid-19 Apr. 29. Arresting relatives to pressure wanted individuals into surrendering themselves is a Maduro regime practice that has been denounced by the United Nations, the local opposition and several local and international Non-Governmental Organizations.
And the outbreak doesn’t seem to have abated: relatives of Guillemo Zarraga told LAHT that the former state oil firm PDVSA worker got infected with covid-19 also while in Bolieta, where he is still in custody, accused of siding with Guaido against Maduro and aiding an alleged US agent in an aborted sabotage plan against the oil industry.
Ochoa and Zarraga are examples of a worrying trend. As of now, 88% of Venezuela’s 306 political prisoners have not received a firm sentence. And 74% have not even had a hearing, according to NGO Foro Penal, which provides political prisoner figures for the Organization of American States and other bodies. Some 100 political prisoners are military personnel and now housed in military brigs. It is not known if they will also be remanded to the custody of the Justice Ministry.
Zarraga is considered a political prisoner and will be transferred, a source with knowledge of his case said.
The General Directorate of Military Counter-Intelligence and the National Bolivarian Intelligence Service –where Bolivarian denotes allegiance to the Bolivarian Revolution Hugo Chavez began in 1999– operate several jails, with the most notorious ones in East and West Caracas. Both law-enforcement agencies were founded by Chavez and have been bolstered by Maduro.
Former DGCIM top boss until 2014, Hugo Carvajal Peck, fled the country and in February 2019 publicly sided with National Assembly President Juan Guaido against Maduro. Months after Peck’s polemical move, in April 2019, SEBIN head Manuel Christopher Figuera had taken exactly the same steps and is now living in the US, sanctions against him and his wife imposed by the Trump Administration now lifted.
Activists from local NGOS Fundepro and Ventana a la Libertad were content with the calculated move –Maduro is actively trying to get the US to lift sanctions on him and several state concerns–, but wary about the possible impact.
DGCIM and SEBIN jails such as those in the DGCIM Boleita headquarters, Las Tumbas in Plaza Venezuela and SEBIN’s Helicoide in Western Caracas have been denounced as torture centers were unlawfully detained individuals, very often political opponents of Chavismo, are raped and beaten to death. The government has admitted to two such cases, in 2018 and 2019.
Fundepro’s Donagee Sandoval says those prisons are a veritable human hodgepodge that includes freshly arrested inmates without a sentence or even a hearing, some suspects being tried and even some convicted inmates in installations that are little more than a garrison where policemen live when on duty. “It’s really a mixed bag,” she said during a telephone interview. “I don’t know where they will fit some 300 political prisoners in decaying, overcrowded jails full of common offenders.”
Opposition lawmaker Delsa Solorzano echoed Sandoval’s concern, the Maduro regime is merely “transferring political prisoners to common jails,” she tweeted.
However, Sandoval expects some of the transferred interns to be remanded to house arrest or even to have their cases thrown out of court. “Political prisoners are there usually because somebody snitched. That’s all the info the cops have to go on. If it doesn’t check out, that’s it, they have to be released,” she added.
www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=2502191&CategoryId=10717
CARACAS -- The Nicolas Maduro regime has ordered that almost all of the 300-plus political prisoners in Venezuela be remanded to the custody of the Justice Ministry, emptying the notorious The Directorate General of Military Counterintelligence (DGCIM) and Bolivarian National Intelligence Service (SEBIN) prisons in Caracas after a Coronavirus death.
The decree, made public last week, is dated May. 12. However, only days before something momentous took place in a Maduro prison for political prisoners.
Alirio Ochoa, the elderly father of a lieutenant, was detained in DGCIM Boleita when he died of Covid-19 Apr. 29. Arresting relatives to pressure wanted individuals into surrendering themselves is a Maduro regime practice that has been denounced by the United Nations, the local opposition and several local and international Non-Governmental Organizations.
And the outbreak doesn’t seem to have abated: relatives of Guillemo Zarraga told LAHT that the former state oil firm PDVSA worker got infected with covid-19 also while in Bolieta, where he is still in custody, accused of siding with Guaido against Maduro and aiding an alleged US agent in an aborted sabotage plan against the oil industry.
Ochoa and Zarraga are examples of a worrying trend. As of now, 88% of Venezuela’s 306 political prisoners have not received a firm sentence. And 74% have not even had a hearing, according to NGO Foro Penal, which provides political prisoner figures for the Organization of American States and other bodies. Some 100 political prisoners are military personnel and now housed in military brigs. It is not known if they will also be remanded to the custody of the Justice Ministry.
Zarraga is considered a political prisoner and will be transferred, a source with knowledge of his case said.
The General Directorate of Military Counter-Intelligence and the National Bolivarian Intelligence Service –where Bolivarian denotes allegiance to the Bolivarian Revolution Hugo Chavez began in 1999– operate several jails, with the most notorious ones in East and West Caracas. Both law-enforcement agencies were founded by Chavez and have been bolstered by Maduro.
Former DGCIM top boss until 2014, Hugo Carvajal Peck, fled the country and in February 2019 publicly sided with National Assembly President Juan Guaido against Maduro. Months after Peck’s polemical move, in April 2019, SEBIN head Manuel Christopher Figuera had taken exactly the same steps and is now living in the US, sanctions against him and his wife imposed by the Trump Administration now lifted.
Activists from local NGOS Fundepro and Ventana a la Libertad were content with the calculated move –Maduro is actively trying to get the US to lift sanctions on him and several state concerns–, but wary about the possible impact.
DGCIM and SEBIN jails such as those in the DGCIM Boleita headquarters, Las Tumbas in Plaza Venezuela and SEBIN’s Helicoide in Western Caracas have been denounced as torture centers were unlawfully detained individuals, very often political opponents of Chavismo, are raped and beaten to death. The government has admitted to two such cases, in 2018 and 2019.
Fundepro’s Donagee Sandoval says those prisons are a veritable human hodgepodge that includes freshly arrested inmates without a sentence or even a hearing, some suspects being tried and even some convicted inmates in installations that are little more than a garrison where policemen live when on duty. “It’s really a mixed bag,” she said during a telephone interview. “I don’t know where they will fit some 300 political prisoners in decaying, overcrowded jails full of common offenders.”
Opposition lawmaker Delsa Solorzano echoed Sandoval’s concern, the Maduro regime is merely “transferring political prisoners to common jails,” she tweeted.
However, Sandoval expects some of the transferred interns to be remanded to house arrest or even to have their cases thrown out of court. “Political prisoners are there usually because somebody snitched. That’s all the info the cops have to go on. If it doesn’t check out, that’s it, they have to be released,” she added.
www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=2502191&CategoryId=10717