The Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ), confirmed the sentences imposed on three police officers of Baruta (Miranda), after being declared guilty of the murder of a person. Such a decision was reflected in Judgment 419 published on July 14, drafted by Judge Maikel Moreno and validates by his colleagues, Carmen Marisela Castro and Elsa Gómez.
The events occurred on June 6, 2022 on Libertador Avenue, Caracas. That day, the Polybaruta agents Henry Moisés Rodríguez Gutiérrez, Isaac de Jesús Álvarez Suniaga and Dodannym Piñero Muñoz, headed in a particular unit, in principle, to look for Zuliany Díaz Pereira and then to the Los Caobos residence, located on Libertador Avenue.
The hours spend and already in the early morning, Henry Rodríguez looks out through one of the windows of the room rooms and it is noticed that two subjects tried to violate the capot of the police unit where they moved.
Due to this, he warns of such a situation to his companions, he draws his firearm and makes several shots to the subjects who allegedly intended to steal. Upon realizing that the men fled, the three police officers go to the ground floor of the building where Henry Rodríguez pursues them on foot, finds one of the alleged thieves in the elevated Maripérez and makes eight shootings that caused death on the site. The subject was shot with a weapon belonging to Polybaruta: a Glock 17 gun, 9 mm caliber.
Once the homicide was committed, the police leave the body abandoned, the caobos are returned to the residence and board the Toyota 4Runner vehicle, AE61Y plates. They return where they left the body, assemble it in the aforementioned unit and go to the Oripoto-Santa Lucía road, La Mata sector, El Hatillo (Miranda) where they release it.
Subsequently, Rodríguez, Álvarez and Piñero move to the main headquarters of Polybaruta and report the novelty to Jenny García, head of investigations.
The trial
In the trial it was proven that the officials ” did not act in defense of any imminent danger or against their integrity, but, on the contrary, with the intention of causing death. ” In the following days, the police were arrested and charged with homicide qualified with alevosía and for futile reasons and improper use of organic weapon.
On the basis of these crimes, the Public Ministry requested on July 23, 2022 to open a trial against the three police; Approach that was presented through an accusatory brief prepared by lawyers Xavier Urdaneta Gasperi and Genesis Rafaela Riera Magdaleno, prosecutors of the judicial constituency of the Metropolitan Area of Caracas, with competence in human rights protection.
That request for trial was approved on September 5, 2022 by the 47th Caracas Control Court. The trial passed between March 7, 2023 and February 16, 2024. At the end, Henry Rodríguez was convicted as the material author of the murder and consequently condemn him to 26 years and 6 months in prison.
While Álvarez and Piñero were found guilty as immediate cooperators in that homicide, which is why they were sentenced to 15 years in prison, refers to the judgment of the Criminal Chamber.
On October 10, 2024, Chamber 10 of the Caracas Court of Appeals confirmed the sentences imposed on the three police. Because of this, lawyers Yobel Enrique Guerrero and Rebeca Yesenia Henríquez Machado went to the TSJ Criminal Chamber to try to reverse the sentences through a appeal.
One of the complaints reflected in the aforementioned appeal is that they gave up appearing during the trial a witness. The magistrates dismissed such a complaint because ” The appeal is not the means to challenge the alleged vices committed by the Courts of First Instance, “the sentence said.
The remaining complaints expanrated in the appeal also focused on criticizing the alleged deficiencies of the trial held against the three police.
In responding such approaches, the magistrates reiterated that the Courts of Appeals are not to re -carry out a trial, as the defense lawyers of Rodríguez, Álvarez and Piñero intend. In response to this, the magistrates dismissed the appeal and left the sentences imposed in the first instance against the three Polybaruta officials.
