The Venezuelan opposition leader Edmundo González Urrutia demanded urgent explanations this Tuesday after the complaint of his daughter, Mariana González de Tudares, about alleged extortion attempts linked to the arrest of her husband Rafael Tudares.
Through a message spread on the social network
“My daughter Mariana denounces three episodes of extortion, in which Rafael’s arrest was deliberately used as an instrument of pressure to force political decisions,” he said, and added “The seriousness of these events and the entire ‘legal’ defect demands immediate responses.”
Mariana’s accusation focuses on at least three incidents in which, according to her story, she was required to pressure her father to abandon his political activity in exchange for her husband’s release.
“I was directly told that, in order for Rafael to regain his freedom and return home, I had to force my father to give up his fight and his cause,” he said in his statement.
According to the complaint, these attempts at coercion occurred in contexts that should be neutral, such as embassies, religious headquarters linked to the Archbishopric, and offices of organizations that publicly defend human rights, and in each case there would have been witnesses present.
Judicial process without evidence
Mariana has also pointed out that the judicial process against Tudaressentenced to 30 years in prison, lacks evidence and is flawed. In his opinion, it is “a fraud on justice and human rights”, in which “there are no witnesses, there is no evidence against Rafael, there are no demonstrable facts against Rafael that constitute a crime.”
The family assures that neither she nor her lawyer had access to the complete file before the conviction, and that Tudares, who is a lawyer, was only able to review the case during his hearing, verifying the absence of elements that would incriminate him.
