Three people accused of attempting to assassinate Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in 2018 with explosive drones have been sentenced to 30 years in prison, the maximum sentence in the country, their families announced on Friday (December 9th).
Retired soldiers Juan Carlos Marrufo and Juan Francisco Rodriguez, who were respectively major and colonel, as well as Maria Delgado Tabosky were sentenced for
"terrorism, treason to the homeland and association of criminals"
, a source told AFP. family who requested anonymity.
The hearing began Thursday evening and ended Friday morning.
Maria Delgado Tabosky, 48, holder of Venezuelan and Spanish nationalities, is the sister of Osman Delgado Tabosky, an American resident accused by the Maduro government of having financed the attack against the president of the Latin American country.
He allegedly provided two drones that exploded near a dais where Nicolás Maduro was standing while presiding over a military ceremony on August 4, 2018 in Caracas.
Juan Carlos Marrufo, a 52-year-old Venezuelan-Italian, is the husband of Mrs. Delgado Tabosky.
Read alsoVenezuela: heavy sentences in the trial of the alleged attack of 2018 against Maduro
“They never had anything to do with the facts. They were simply arrested because they are relatives of a person allegedly connected”
to the attack, said the same source.
The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention declared in 2019 that the detention of Maria Delgado Tabosky and Juan Carlos Marrufo was
"arbitrary"
.
They have been prisoners for three years and eight months of the General Directorate of Military Counterintelligence (DGCIM) in Caracas.
Their relatives requested house arrest for health reasons and called on the Spanish and Italian governments to intercede on the couple's behalf.
Seventeen other defendants in the case, including former opposition MP Juan Requesens, were sentenced in August to terms ranging from five to 30 years in prison.
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