The Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) dismissed two resources that sought to cancel the sentence imposed on four pieces of Mexican drug trafficking, captured in Apure.
Such a decision is contained in Judgment 521 drafted by Judge Maikel Moreno and validates by his colleagues in the Criminal Chamber, Carmen Marisela Castro and Elsa Gómez.
In this case, the defendants are identified as Jesús González Sevilla, Noel Ovillas Beltrán (Mexicans), Ramón del Valle Urrieta Brito and César Augusto Garcés (Venezuelans).
These people were arrested on January 27, 2021 at the Citizen Attention Point located in Cinaruco, Pedro Camejo Municipality (San Juan de Payara), Apure State.
Military agents checked the cell phones of the captured people and observed the conversations with “encrypted codes” that when deciphered reflect “preparatory acts for the traffic of illicit substances,” says the sentence.
By virtue of this, on March 18, 2021, prosecutor Rosa María Mota Correa, requested to prosecute González, Ovillas, Urrieta and Garcés. The Mexicans González and Ovillas accused them of illicit traffic of narcotic and psychotropic substances in the modality of organization and marketing. The two Venezuelans were also accused of that crime but as necessary accomplices. The Public Ministry places the four defendants as “part of a criminal organization dedicated to traffic of illicit substances.”
That approach was accepted on April 30, 2021 by the 2nd Apure Control Court that ordered to open a trial against the four. But in November of that year, the Criminal Chamber ordered to take the Apure file and file it in Carabobo where it was assigned to the 5th trial court, which began the hearings on June 14, 2022.
The trial against the four defendants culminated on April 15, 2024, when the aforementioned court declared the subjects guilty and imposed a 24 -year prison sentence. In December of that year 2024, Chamber two of the Carabobo Court of Appeals ratified the sentence imposed.
That is why the defense lawyers went to the Criminal Chamber of the TSJ, where they consigned a appeal in which they summarize what they consider the irregularities committed in the prosecution.
One of the complaints made is related to “the lack of valuation” of the evidence presented at the trial, which was reflected in the “lack of motivation” of the sentence issued by the Court of Appeals of Carabobo.
The magistrates reiterated that the Courts of Appeals are not empowered to assess the evidence presented in a trial, a role that legally corresponds to the Courts of First Instance, in this case to the 5th Court of Carabobo’s trial. Based on this, the Criminal Chamber dismissed the resources raised by the four defendants, whose 24 -year -old sentence left untouched.
The southern command looking at Apure
In June of the year 2021, Craig Faller, head of the South Command of the United States, visited Puerto Carreño, a Colombian municipality that limits Puerto Páez, a Apureña region where the two Mexicans and two Venezuelans arrested that same year, which were subsequently sentenced to 24 years in prison for drug trafficking.
On that occasion, the Minister for Defense, Vladimir Padrino López, issued a statement rejecting such a visit. “While the head of the South Command Visit Puerto Carreño in Colombia, Tradewinds 2021 exercises are carried out in Guyana with the presence of American military?
