The Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice dismissed nine appeals that sought to annul the sentences imposed on 17 people found guilty of participating in the frustrated assassination perpetrated on August 4, 2018 when President Nicolás Maduro was at a military event held in the Bolívar Avenue in Caracas.
These people, 13 civilians and four soldiers, were accused by the Public Ministry of intentional homicide classified as frustrating the person of the President of the Republic, among other crimes.
The preliminary hearing where it was debated whether or not to order a trial against the 17 was held between February 22 and July 1, 2019. On that date, effectively the First National Control Court with jurisdiction in cases linked to derivative crimes and Connections Associated with Terrorism ordered a trial to be opened against the 17 accused.
The trial took place between December 2, 2019 and August 2, 2022 when the First National Trial Court with jurisdiction in cases related to Derivative and Related crimes associated with Terrorism issued sentences between 5 and 30 years in prison.
These sentences were ratified on March 21 by Special Chamber Two of the Anti-Terrorist Court of Appeals.
On August 23, the Criminal Chamber received the nine appeals (cassation) submitted by lawyers for the 17 convicted. The appeals contain complaints related mostly to the trial held against the accused.
One of the complaints states that the trial court allegedly refused to proceed with a new test that supposedly favored the general of the Bolivarian National Guard (GNB) Alejandro Pérez Gámez, accused of having reported the change of the place where the event would take place. celebration of the 81st anniversary of that military component, which served as a guide for the assassination planners.
General Gámez’s lawyers, Eliécer Peña Granda and Yalira Granda, argued that another soldier had already admitted to being the person who informed Julio Borges about the location where the military event would take place. They were referring to Lieutenant Colonel Ovidio Carrasco Mosqueda, member of the Presidential Honor Guard and Head of the Communications Directorate at that time, accused of revealing confidential information both to Borges and to the American Intelligence Center (CIA), “facilitating the planning of the drone attack on the presidential platform,” according to the ruling.
The magistrates rejected that complaint because it does not qualify to be presented in an appeal, which is aimed at denouncing alleged infractions of the courts of appeal and not the trial courts.
“The Courts of Appeal cannot appreciate or evaluate the evidence discussed at trial, highlighting that the appeal of cassation is not the means to challenge the alleged defects committed by the courts of first instance (in this case the appreciation, admission and evaluation of the evidence discussed at trial) but those committed by the Courts of Appeals,” the judges stressed.
Another of the complaints filed is the raid carried out on a property attributed to General Héctor Armando Hernández Da Costa and where they found a document titled “Operation Constitution”, alluding to the plans to depose President Maduro. Hernández Da Costa “acted with known premeditation,” says the sentence.
The magistrates also rejected that complaint because it was an unclear and imprecise approach. And they recalled that the facts reported in an appeal must precisely indicate “what the defect is, how it affected and the effect or influence it produced on the appealed decision.”
The remaining complaints were also dismissed by the Criminal Chamber, whose magistrates left the sentences imposed unscathed, as read in sentence 682 written by Judge Elsa Gómez and validated by her colleagues, Carmen Marisela Castro and Maikel Moreno.
The condemned
- Among the 17 Prosecuted for the frustrated assassination, 12 were sentenced to 30 years in prison. They were found guilty of the crimes of: intentional homicide qualified in degree of frustration committed against the physical integrity of President Nicolás Maduro; qualified intentional homicide carried out with treachery and for futile reasons in a degree of frustration to the detriment of citizens (military) José Del Valle Núñez Martínez, Ortiz Belatis Benny, Luis José Alexander Molina Torres, Darwin Moreno, Gómez Dorante Jesús, Hernández Moran Víctor y Guerrero Salazar Lizneidy; launching of explosive devices at public meetings; treason to the country; terrorism and association.
- That conviction was issued on August 2, 2022 by the First Special Trial Court with jurisdiction in cases related to Crimes Associated with Terrorism with Jurisdiction at the National Level under Judge Hennit Carolina López Mesa.
- Among the 12 Sentenced to the maximum sentence are three soldiers, one of them General Alejandro Pérez Gámez, who at the time of the events was serving as director of the Services for the Maintenance of Internal Order of the Bolivarian National Guard (GNB).
- The Colonel (GNB) Pedro Javier Zambrano Hernández was another of the soldiers who received the maximum sentence. They blame him for having allegedly sent messages to the perpetrators of the attack.
- Juan Carlos Monasterio Vanegas, a retired first sergeant major (GNB), was also sentenced to 30 years in prison. This person was requested for his alleged participation in the assault on the Paramacay Fort located in Valencia (Carabobo) on August 6, 2017. But in the file of the drone attack he is listed as the person who allegedly recruited the 11 participants in the action. on August 4, 2018 for training at the Atlanta farm, located in Chinacota, Colombia, according to his own testimony.
- The pilots of The two drones activated in front of the platform where the head of state was on August 4 were also sentenced to 30 years in prison: Bryan de Jesús Oropeza Ruiz, Argenis Gabriel Valera Ruiz and Alberto José Bracho Rosques. Yanín Fabiana Pernía Coronel, the woman accused of providing them with logistics for that action, also received the maximum sentence.
- Yolmer José Escalona Torrealba, the explosives expert who received the drones in Barquisimeto (Lara) for preparation with C-4, according to the investigation, was also sentenced to 30 years.
- Emirlendris Carolina Benitez Rosales, a businesswoman classified as an alleged collaborator in the failed attack, received the maximum sentence.
- Oswaldo Gabriel Castillo Lunar, sentenced to 30 years in prison, confessed through a video to being a member of the so-called Active Resistance. Castillo was one of those who trained in the Colombian camp to activate the drones. “I asked Mrs. Génesis who financed this, she answered that the financier of all this is called Julio Borges,” Castillo confessed.
- Henrybert Emmanuel Rivas Rivas, sentenced to 30 years, was the ringleader of the operation, as stated at the time by the then Minister of Communication, Jorge Rodríguez. Rivas said in a video that after the attack they tried to get him out of Venezuela with the collaboration of the Chilean embassy. “I lasted five months in the camp. “We practiced a lot using drones,” the subject revealed.
- Jose Miguel Estrada González is also part of the group of 12 sentenced to 30 years in prison for being a collaborator in the preparation of the drones. This subject was enrolled (from prison) in the plans prepared by a sector of the opposition to carry out a new coup d’état this year, as revealed last Saturday, September 14, by the Minister of the Interior, Diosdado Cabello.
- General Hector Armando Hernández Da Costa is another of the convicted soldiers. In this case, they imposed a penalty of 16 years in prison after charging him with the crime of conspiracy.
- Angela Lizbeth Expósito Cheek. 24 years in prison. Accused of hosting Henrybert Enmanuel Rivas Rivas, ringleader of the operation, in her home.
- Jose Eloy Rivas Diaz. 20 years in prison for financing terrorism. Owner of the Stand Electronic company, charged with paying for lodging and providing electronic equipment for the operation.
- Juan Requesen (former deputy of First Justice). 8 years in prison for the crime of conspiracy. In a video he declared details of the operation and his performance in it. “I was contacted by Julio Borges, who asked me for the favor of transferring a person from Venezuela to Colombia, it was Juan Monasterio,” he revealed.
- The court of The trial established that there were two explosions “caused, as a result of the activation of explosive devices that were incorporated into two unmanned drone-type aircraft, one of which invaded the airspace adjacent to the presidential platform, generating a large explosion that “put at risk the lives of President Nicolás Maduro and the GNB military personnel,” the sentence says.
- It was also proven in court that the second aircraft exploded on the second floor of the Don Eduardo residences, located on Avenida Fuerzas Armadas in Caracas, “causing serious structural damage to the aforementioned property, with the criminal group failing to achieve its objective due to circumstances beyond its control. , despite having done everything necessary to consummate it,” the sentence states.
- Judge Lopez Mesa stated in her sentence and reproduced by the magistrates that she was “convinced that the criminal action was planned and carried out by a group of civil and military people who sought to destabilize the country.”
