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Venezuela sentences opponent Juan Requesens to eight years for the drone attack against Maduro

2022-08-04T17:42:13.374Z


A court with jurisdiction in terrorism also condemns, among other people, a division general and a retired sergeant for the 2018 attack


The Venezuelan opponent Juan Requesens, in March 2017. Carlos Garcia Rawlins (REUTERS)

A Venezuelan court with jurisdiction over terrorism has sentenced Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Requesens, a member of the Primero Justicia formation, to eight years in prison for a crime of conspiracy.

The ruling of the First Special Trial Court links the former deputy to the drone attack against Nicolás Maduro during a military ceremony in August 2018. Along with Requesens, 16 other people were sentenced, as was known this Thursday.

Among them, Division General Alejandro Pérez Gámez, retired Sergeant Juan Carlos Monasterio and six civilians received the maximum sentence provided by the country's criminal code, 30 years in prison.

Requesens, 31, a former student leader and fierce opponent of Chavismo, has been detained for four years, first in the El Helicoide prison in Caracas and since 2020 he has been under house arrest at his residence.

His sister, Rafaela Requesens, also a prominent opposition university leader, was arrested at the same time and released shortly after without charge.

The judge also requested an extradition request for Julio Borges, general coordinator of Primero Justicia and one of the main leaders of the Venezuelan opposition, for his alleged mastermind of the events, and for businessman Osman Delgado Tabosky.

An important part of the Venezuelan opposition considers these events a setup and does not believe the thesis of the assassination of Chavismo.

Since 2019, Requesens faced charges of treason, intentional homicide, terrorism, criminal association, continued public incitement, and illegal possession of weapons and ammunition.

Joel García, his defense attorney, indicated through Twitter that "the Public Ministry could not prove Juan Requesens' responsibility in any of the seven crimes for which he was accused."

"The judge has no way to convict him and he must be acquitted, but our justice is kidnapped," he added.

On August 4, 2018, exactly four years ago, the Maduro government's staff held a military parade on Bolívar Avenue in Caracas commemorating the 81st anniversary of the creation of the Venezuelan National Guard, now called the Bolivarian National Guard.

While Maduro was offering a speech, broadcast live on radio and television, accompanied by the country's military leadership and his Cabinet, two drones loaded with gunpowder and plastic explosives reached the concentration area: one exploded in front of the presidential podium, producing great commotion in those present, and another slipped between the soldiers, generating the disorderly flight of the military formed.

The attack left five wounded, as reported that day.

The then Minister of Interior Relations and Justice, Néstor Reverol, assured that both artifacts, spotted in time, were neutralized and diverted by the intelligence services and the Presidential Honor Guard to avoid deaths.

The official stated that the drone directed against Maduro was carrying a kilogram of C-4 plastic explosive.

In a press conference organized that same night, the president denounced the attack against him and accused the Colombian government of Juan Manuel Santos, who was about to leave his successor, Iván Duque, as a witness, and "the Venezuelan extreme right" of being behind the plot.

The Colombian Foreign Ministry rejected the accusations.

Shortly after, Maduro and the Minister of Communications, Jorge Rodríguez, directly accused Requesens and Borges.

The Venezuelan parliament at the time, controlled by the opposition, issued a resolution supporting both and arguing that they were politicized accusations.

Requesens, who was at his residence, was arrested almost immediately.

The opposition denounced that the defendant was drugged to obtain a statement, spread through social networks, in which he assumed responsibility for what happened and declared that he had been contacted by Borges.

Opposition leader Juan Guaidó condemned the ruling now known.

“Juan Requesens is a fighter for democracy, a friend, father, son, a Venezuelan who will never give up on his convictions.

The dictatorship kidnapped him and keeps him deprived of his freedom as a mechanism of persecution of an entire society that resists, ”he declared.

The father of the leader of Primero Justicia, Juan Requesens Gruber, a doctor and activist, launched a message of rejection.

“I repudiate tyrants and tyranny.

Now and always, so be it,” he wrote on Twitter.

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2022-08-04

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