The Civil Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) declared void the entire civil process that gave rise to the criminal case open to the Zulian businessman Jaime Andrés Ruiz Salamanca. This person was victim of an extortion allegedly by the then prosecutor Mariángelis Araque Díaz, who is currently being criminally prosecuted due to that fact.
Because of this, Jaime Jesús Ruíz Bernal (75), father of Ruiz Salamanca, expressed his concern because his son remains deprived of liberty ” Despite the recent judgment of the TSJ that annulled the civil process that gave rise to the criminal case. ” Ruiz Bernal denounced the existence of “ a structure of judicial complicity that has acted to keep my son imprisoned. ”
But the process that gave rise to this criminal file, was annulled on October 1, 2025, by the Civil Cassation Chamber of the TSJ, according to Judgment number 567, written by magistrate Henry José Timaure Tapia and signed by his colleagues José Luis Gutiérrez and Carmen Aeneida Alves.
This civil trial is about the eviction of the property where one of the companies of Ruiz Salamanca located in Zulia works. To that establishment was presented by prosecutor Araque Díaz on June 5 and deprived him of liberty accusing him of invading that property.
The previous owner had filed a civil lawsuit against Ruiz Salamanca. But the Civil Chamber declared the absolute nullity of all the actions in the aforementioned eviction process, from the admission car of June 13, 2023 and ordered to replenish the process to admit and substantiate the demand for the oral procedure, in accordance with article 43 of the Commercial Lease Law.
” That decision confirms that it is a strictly civil and non -criminal issue as they want to present it, ” says the father of the detainee in a statement.
The TSJ annulled everything acted, even the alleged evidence that the Public Ministry (represented in the prosecutor Araque Díaz), used to build his criminal accusation against Jaime Andrés Ruiz Salamanca.
” The decision of the Civil Chamber ordered to initiate the process in its natural jurisdiction from scratch, and yet my son is still deprived of liberty under a criminal procedure supported by actions that were already declared non -existent by the highest court, ” Ruiz Bernal claimed.
The preliminary hearing to discuss whether or not a criminal trial against Ruiz Salamanca was held before the Court of Zulia control by Greismar Yaremi Jaimes Ruiz. For that moment, the TSJ had declared that the open process in Ruíz Salamanca was civil, but the aforementioned Zulian criminal court advanced and admitted the public prosecutor’s approach to criminally prosecute Ruiz Salamanca, keeping him deprived of liberty.
In that sense, the father of the defendant denounced that Judge Jaimes Ruiz extemporaneously admitted a evidence presented by the Prosecutor’s Office, consisting of a registration trade received at 12:59 pm on August 29, two hours after the preliminary hearing began.
” This evidence was not part of the accusation and was incorporated outside the period provided for in article 311 of the Organic Code of Criminal Procedure, which vitiates both the preliminary hearing and the order of opening to trial, ” he denounced.
While that process to Ruiz Salamanca continues, the other is also open against prosecutor Araque Diaz, accused of demanding the businessman certain amount in dollars to favor it. For that fact, the then prosecutor Mariángelis Araque Díaz, was formally accused and passed to trial by the Second Court of Control of the Zulia State for the crimes of delay or intentional omission of functions, arbitrary act and crouching.
” The ex -fiscal was one of those directly responsible for the manipulation of the process, together with other judicial officials who continue to replicate the same procedural conduct, ignoring the decision of the highest court, ”said Ruíz Bernal.
He said that his son “has been treated as guilty from the beginning, although the TSJ confirmed that the conflict is strictly civil and that the entire previous process was annulled by irregularities.”
Ruiz Bernal announced that in the next few days he will record new evidence before the General Inspectorate of Courts and will file a criminal complaint with the Attorney General of the Republic requesting a comprehensive review of the process that keeps his child imprisoned, in order to guarantee his constitutional rights.
“I trust that the competent authorities will act according to the law and objectively review the situation to restore their freedom,” he concluded.
