The former Venezuelan president Nicolas Madurodetained in the United States and prosecuted for narcoterrorism in a New York court, requested to be incorporated into the Amnesty Law being discussed by the National Assembly, as revealed by his son, the Chavista deputy. Nicolás Maduro Guerra.
Maduro, arrested on January 3 after being captured with his wife Cilia Flores during the US military operation in Caracas, he would have telephoned his son to explicitly request his inclusion in the judicial pardon proposed by Parliament. “He told me: amnesty not only for them, but for us too”Maduro Guerra said.
The draft Amnesty Law for Democratic Coexistence has generated strong controversy. Its breadth—which covers political crimes from 1999 to the present—has been interpreted by analysts as a maneuver to benefit key figures of the Chavista repressive apparatus.
Political scientist Ramón Ibarra assured ABC that the initiative has “the evil intention of putting the countless victims of his abuses in the same bag (…) along with the torturers, murderers and henchmen trained and encouraged by his disastrous government, since the time of Chávez.”
Nicolasito receives the call from New York
Ibarra maintains that political prisoners do not require an amnesty to be released, but rather “a simple political decision,” agreeing with jurists such as Alberto Arteaga and Juan Carlos Apitz.
Since January 8, The government has released about 450 political prisonersbut approximately 644 people are still detained, including 185 soldiers and 40 foreigners, according to figures from the Penal Forum cited by ABC.
The alleged request of the former president occurred during the plenary session last Thursday the 12th, when opposition representative Nora Bracho, vice president of the commission in charge of the project, asked to suspend the debate on article 7 due to lack of consensus.
The president of Parliament, Jorge Rodríguez, decided to postpone the discussion until after the Carnival holiday.
Meanwhile, Maduro and Flores—both in custody in the United States— They seek to benefit from the general forgiveness that the norm proposes.
Hunger strike and liberations in Zone 7
In the country, the humanitarian crisis of political prisoners continues. Relatives chained and living in tents for a month began a hunger strike to demand immediate releases.
ABC reported that this weekend 17 people were released under precautionary measures from the Zone 7 prison, where it is estimated that there were about 80 people detained for political reasons. Among those released are José Luis Subero, Gabriel Sánchez —a young man with autism— and José Elías Torrespresident of CTV.
Evelis Cano, mother of the detained Jack Tantak, declared to the Spanish media that the hunger strike is “indefinite, until they are all released.”
The protests also spread to the gates of Fort Guaicaipuro, in Maracay, where relatives denounced the inhumane conditions in which 187 soldiers imprisoned for political reasons are being held.
Marinés Vásquez, wife of Captain Juan Luis Gutiérrez, told ABC who saw her husband “malnourished, yellow and thin, 20 kilos lighter and his hands shaking”. He assured that “the imprisoned soldiers are being killed little by little. They look like living corpses.”
ABC especially highlights the case of 32 soldiers linked to the Gedeón group, allegedly accused of conspiring four years ago against the Maduro regime.
