The Social Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) admitted the participation of the Ombudsman in the trial on the occasion of the abuses committed in Venezuela by the American William James Vahey. Such decision is contained in judgment 035 of the aforementioned Chamber.
The ombudsman, Alfredo Ruíz, asked the Social Chamber to allow him to participate as an “Amicus Curiae” (friend of the court) in order to issue an opinion in the trial for non-pecuniary damage filed against the Asociación Civil Escuela Campo Alegre.
William James Vahey worked at that institution between 2002 and 2009, a period in which he made two trips with students, 30 of whom were abused by him, according to investigations. But only one of those 30 students sued the Campo Alegre School for being Vahey’s employer and sponsor of the trips, according to the posters included in the file.
The lawsuit did not prosper in the Lopnna courts of Caracas and therefore the victim’s lawyers (Eddy Méndez and Javier Pipkin) went to the Social Chamber of the TSJ.
In the midst of this process, the Ombudsman’s Office requested to participate because human rights are at stake in that trial.
The Chamber accepted this approach and agreed to give him participation in the trial because it is an institution responsible for promoting, defending and monitoring the rights and guarantees established in the Constitution and international human rights treaties.
The magistrates analyzed the approach and recalled that the figure (Amicus Curiae) invoked by the Ombudsman’s Office is an instrument by which the other interested parties access justice “to make their voices and arguments heard, providing a well-founded opinion on the object litigation, in which socially sensitive issues are debated”.
The Chamber must set a date for the final hearing of the trial, which was originally to be held on July 28, but was canceled 16 hours before, informed the lawyers Pipkin and Méndez.
The pen drive
The beginning of the trial dates back to 2014 when the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) certified 30 students from the Campo Alegre School as victims of sexual abuse.
The FBI reached that conclusion by emptying a flash drive that was discovered by William James Vahey when he lived in Managua, Nicaragua. On that occasion, his maid took the flash drive and saw numerous photos of naked children with signs of being drugged.
The maid delivered the flash drive to the director of the school where Vahey taught, located in the Nicaraguan capital. The man admitted to the authority of that school that he had been abusing schoolchildren since 1972.
The principal of the school handed over the flash drive to the FBI and that is when that unit published a file cataloging Vahey as “the most prolific pedophile in history.” The FBI counted 90 victims registered on the flash drive: 60 students from London and 30 from Colegio Campo Alegre, Caracas.
