The first oral and public hearing of the Venezuelan journalist and activist of the Voluntad Popular party Roland Carreño will take place this Monday, May 9, at the Palace of Justice in Caracas.
The hearing was scheduled for May 2, but it was deferred due to the lack of transfer from the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service (Sebin) to the seat of the court.
The NGO Coalition for Human Rights and Democracy confirmed in Twitter that at 1:23 pm Carreño was arriving at the Palace of Justice.
The journalist’s lawyers, in statements to the media minutes before his arrival, reiterated that the judicial process has been riddled with irregularities.
“We have been denouncing throughout the process that his judicial guarantees have been violated, and that today he is facing trial without any evidence linking him to the facts for which he will be tried,” said Ana Leonor Acosta, one of the defenders of Carreño.
Lawyer Joel García denounced that the judicial process against Carreño could be carried out in a single hearing, “if the Venezuelan Justice had the will to do so.”
Carreño was arrested on October 26, 2020 by police officers who kept him missing for more than 12 hours. On October 27 of that year, it was confirmed that he was at the Sebin headquarters in El Helicoide.
The Prosecutor’s Office and the court in the case coincide in pointing out that the journalist was detained “in flagrante delicto”, because at the time of the arrest “an unarmed model AM-15 5.56 caliber rifle with 17 ammunition was seized from him”, as reported in October 2020 The supreme court of justice.
The journalist was accused of committing the crimes of financing terrorism, conspiracy against political form and illicit trafficking in weapons of war.
Later, his defense reported that he was also charged with “conspiracy to commit a crime.”
In addition, the attorney general, Tarek William Saab, assured that Carreño “is the main” financier of Voluntad Popular and that at the time of his arrest he had 12,000 dollars in cash with him, while they found conversations on his mobile that accounted for the distribution of other $60,000 for acts of “conspiracy.”
#Attention #Courts
At this time 1:23 pm the @Coalicion_ddhh confirms that #RolandCarreño is arriving at the Palace of Justice in Caracas— Coalition for Human Rights and Democracy (@Coalicion_ddhh) May 9, 2022
