The Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice ratified the sentence of 24 years and three months in prison imposed on eight officers of the Bolivarian National Police (PNB) accused of committing sexual abuse against a detainee in the framework of the violent protests of 2017, according to Judgment No. 154 written by Judge Elsa Gómez Moreno.
The events occurred on June 20, 2017 in the vicinity of the Flower Bakery, Raúl Leoni parish, Maracaibo (Zulia), where a young man was arrested, who was walking with his girlfriend. The man was mounted on a patrol car and entered the Corpoelec headquarters, El Amparo sector of the Zulian capital.
Once confined in a room in the company of other detainees, “he was beaten, tortured, humiliated and raped by officials attached to the PNB”, according to the accusation of the Public Ministry collected in the sentence of the Criminal Chamber.
One of the officers present at that time is identified as Elvis Labarca, who proceeded together with the other police officers “to rape the citizen…using an extendable baton which was introduced…causing injuries outside the sphere…”.
For this fact, on May 7, 2018, policemen Alvis Rafael Labarca, Manuel Alejandro Chacón Pirela, Michael Enrique González Cuesta, Rolando José Baleta Puerta, Carlos Luis Contreras Bustamante, Joxy Alain Quiróz Briceño, Kendry Enrique Osorio Eulasia and Lizsujey were arrested. Maria Niebles.
The trial against these uniformed officers took place between December 28, 2020 and May 11, 2021 when they were sentenced to 24 years and three months in prison for cruel treatment and rape (for Elvis Labarca) and the rest of the accomplices in uniform necessary in those two crimes.
The lawyers of the police group appealed the conviction but the Zulia Court of Appeals declared the appeals inadmissible on August 24, 2021. That is why they went to the Criminal Chamber where their magistrates also dismissed the appeals that seek to reverse the conviction, considering them unfounded. .
