The rapes and torture to which First Lieutenant (Ex) Franklin Caldera Martínez has been subjected were exposed in reports from the Fact-Finding Mission on Venezuela. His relatives maintain that he was kidnapped on Colombian soil and involved in other military conspiracies to give him more time in prison, a direct order from Judge José Mascimino Márquez, currently imprisoned for corruption.
800 days kidnapped by agents of the General Directorate of Military Counterintelligence (Dgcim). This is how the relatives of Army First Lieutenant Franklin Caldera Martínez define the time he has been imprisoned, after getting involved with other comrades in a military operation with the objective of defending indigenous territories in the south of Bolívar state.
On January 13, 2019, Caldera deserted from the Venezuelan Army and went to Colombia. After he appeared, along with other soldiers in a public manifesto against President Nicolás Maduro, a persecution began against him that also reached his family.
At the end of that year, the soldier appeared – along with Josué Abraham Hidalgo and Ruso Cárdenas – in the manifesto of “Operation Aurora”, a military rebellion made up of a handful of officers whose objective was to protect the indigenous people of southern Venezuela. .
At the beginning of 2020, the soldier traveled to Norte de Santander to meet his son, but DGCIM troops on Colombian soil —with the support of agents of the National Liberation Army (ELN), explained his father, Franklin Caldera— transferred him to an area near Caracas, where they subjected him to various physical and psychological torture for 11 days.
The first lieutenant, his father explained, managed to escape on February 23, 2021, but the next day he was recaptured in an operation carried out on the Gran Mariscal de Ayacucho highway, between Caracas and Guarenas. In said operation, he received a point-blank shot to one of his knees and a penetrating puncture wound to the other, making it impossible for him to walk.
Franklin Caldera Martínez was accused of the crimes of terrorism, criminal association, treason, flight (although his capture had not been recognized until then), conspiracy and theft of weapons. He also got involved in the Gideon operation.
«There is a judge who from the beginning threatened him that he was going to rot in jail. I denounced Judge (José) Mascimino Márquez before the Human Rights Prosecutor of Venezuela for the arbitrary situation in which he treated my son,” said Caldera Sr.
Currently, Judge Márquez has been in prison since March 13 for alleged bribes received during his time in the Terrorism Control Room Court. The lawyer Theresly Malavé He stated that, according to data from at least four NGOs, this official handled 40% of the cases involving political prisoners throughout the country, including 56 soldiers, such as Caldera.
* Also read: Relatives of political prisoners ask to review the trials of José Mascimino Márquez
The situation of the soldier has been, thanks to the diligence of his parents, in different instances of human rights worldwide. After the management of a team from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner, on June 4, 2021, they were transferred from a Dgcim cell to the National Center for Military Prosecutors (Cepromil) of Los Teques, better known as the Ramo Verde prison.
The Fact Finding Mission, referring to the illegal actions of security forces during detention, which includes short-term forced disappearances, stated in its report 2021 your situation.
“The case of Franklin Caldera, who declared before the Fourth Terrorism Control Court in his first appearance that on February 11, 2021 he had been kidnapped in Colombia, allegedly by members of the Dgcim, and had subsequently been interrogated and tortured for some 12 days, during which time his whereabouts were not officially provided.”
A year later, in The report Regarding the responsibility of security forces in human rights violations and the specific participation of some agents, the UN Mission expanded the information on violations of the military’s human rights, and included the torture to which his father was subjected.
“According to witnesses with knowledge of military intelligence, the Dgcim has deployed agents in other countries, such as Colombia and Panama, to gather information and capture real and perceived dissidents who were wanted by the Venezuelan government. Among them are Dgcim agents, as well as members of collectives and guerrillas. In the case of First Lieutenant Franklin Caldera, investigated by the Mission, Dgcim officials kidnapped him in Colombia and took him to the other side of the border, where he was tortured and later detained in Boleíta, Dgcim. »
The Mission also identified Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Granko Arteada as one of the Dgcim officials who directly participated in Caldera’s arrest. “After Franklin Caldera was detained in Colombia, he was taken across the Venezuelan border and handed over by a captain to Granko Arteaga and other Dgcim officials. Subsequently, Dgcim officials took him to a house in the La Mariposa sector, in Caracas, which has been described as “Granko’s house number 1″, where he was tortured for 11 days.”
Post Views: 156
