Activist Rocío San Miguel has been detained by Venezuelan authorities for a month, accused of being part of an alleged conspiracy to assassinate President Nicolás Maduro and provoke a coup d'état.
In these 30 days, no conclusive evidence has been presented to support this plot in which opponents and members of the armed forces would also be involved.
During this time, as EL PAÍS has learned, San Miguel, an expert in the complex Venezuelan military world who, with her support for the movement devised by Hugo Chávez, forms a fundamental part of the power mechanism of Chavismo, has not had access to her lawyers nor has she received consular assistance from Spain, the country of which he has dual nationality.
San Miguel remains detained in Helicoide, the intelligence service prison.
By not being able to contact the lawyers who represent her, she has not had the opportunity to prepare her defense or know exactly what the evidence against her is.
In fact, she has been assigned a court-appointed attorney who missed a February 27 appeal date.
The attorney general, Tarek William Saab, presented as evidence in a press conference a very poor quality audio in which a soldier implicated San Miguel in his confession and some "outdated, publicly accessible and academic" maps, according to her family, which she used as a teacher at the Higher Schools of Naval Warfare, Air Warfare and National Guard.
Furthermore, it was added as an investigation that another of the detainees had her phone number recorded in his cell phone address book, which still seems irrelevant.
The case of San Miguel has acquired a great international profile.
She is a renowned academic with many years of experience.
The prosecution also detained her daughter, her husband, her ex-husband—with whom she barely had contact—and two other relatives.
All were released with charges, except for his current partner.
The international community has shown deep concern about her situation.
Spain has tried, with contacts at the highest level, to transfer him to at least a probation regime, without success.
Chavismo has been inflexible and has not even allowed her to be assisted by the Spanish consulate, a service that the authorities always offer to detainees of their nationality in foreign countries.
The building known as El Helicoide, in Caracas, on February 14. Miguel Gutiérrez (EFE)
San Miguel is the director of Citizen Control, an NGO that prosecutor Willan Saab calls a cover to discredit the Venezuelan armed forces.
She was a source of many foreign correspondents who wanted to be up to date on the situation of the military, something key to testing the situation in the country.
Her case has been directly linked to the presidential elections that will be held this year, on July 28.
In fact, opponents and human rights defenders believe that it is the main reason why she is behind bars.
Maduro had shown himself willing, with the Barbados agreements, to organize elections in which the opposition could compete fairly.
Washington received that suggestion as an open door to seek a democratic solution to the country's institutional crisis and lifted sanctions on gold and oil that favored the Chavista government.
However, Maduro has been inflexible and has not enabled – nor will he, because he leads him in the polls – María Corina Machado, the opposition leader.
The Constitutional Court, controlled by Chavismo, has ratified his 15-year sanction to hold public office based on his support for the interim government of Juan Guaidó and the sanctions imposed by the White House.
In parallel, the Chavista authorities have arrested opponents and sometimes simple citizens who are critical on social networks.
The opening that Maduro and his right-hand man, the president of the Assembly, Jorge Rodríguez, implied, has been put on hold.
The US has already said that sanctions will return.
Despite this, Rodríguez has insisted that these will be open and democratic elections in which members of the European Union and Celac, among other institutions, will participate as observers.
The European mission, two years ago, said after the regional and local votes that it had seen democratic advances that it hoped to see reflected in the presidential elections.
The Prosecutor of Venezuela, Tarek William Saab, on January 31. MIGUEL GUTIERREZ (EFE)
The atmosphere, some time later, is not one of optimism.
María Corina Machado has started her campaign, although candidate registration closes on March 25 and she cannot do so.
There are, however, possible substitutions until April 20.
A deep-rooted idea among many opponents is that everyone unite around a figure who is qualified, whether Machado or not.
A way to try to defeat Chavismo in unity, if that is possible under current conditions.
Chavismo has recurrently taken advantage of the fractures among anti-Chavistas to exercise its electoral dominance, sometimes appearing practically alone.
With all these circumstances fluttering around it, the situation in San Miguel generates concern.
Her daughter, Miranda, has been able to see her on two occasions, the last one this Friday, and has transmitted a message through her lawyer —she could not do so directly given her procedural situation.
She “she remains strong and very confident in her innocence.
She has demonstrated through her work that she is a woman of peace and dialogue.
“She requests that the heart of the person who makes the decisions be softened so that she can be granted early freedom,” the message says.
The family, in a statement sent to this newspaper, maintains that their situation is one of absolute defenselessness: “The fact that no one has been able to access the file prepared by the Venezuelan Prosecutor's Office is very worrying, since fundamental procedural lapses are occurring. to exercise defense, and said lapses are expiring, substantially harming their right to defense and due process.”
Below is a mention of the lawyer imposed by the Government who, for now, has not acted as a defense attorney, which facilitates the task of the prosecution.
Thus, San Miguel has been in prison for a month and has no prospect of his procedural situation changing substantially.
The Venezuelan political entanglement works against them.
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