A Venezuelan court on Friday sentenced nine former police officials to as long as 30 years in prison for the killings of demonstrators during street protests that led to the failed 2002 coup against President Hugo Chavez.
Former Caracas police chief Henry Vivas, deputy chief Lazaro Forero and city public safety director Ivan Simonovis were sentenced to 30-year terms, the Attorney General’s Office said. It said they were convicted of being accomplices to murder in the killings of two pro-government demonstrators, and accomplices in the attempted murder of two others and the wounding of a dozen people.
Six rank-and-file officers were sentenced to 17-year and 30-year terms for “complicity” to murder in the killings and other crimes, prosecutors said in a statement.
Allies and adversaries of Chavez were among 19 killed on April 11, 2002, as an opposition march led by police approached a pro-Chavez demonstration in Caracas.
The violence preceded a short-lived coup in which Chavez was ousted by dissident military officers. He returned to power two days later with the help of loyalist generals and street protests by supporters.
Government foes blame the violence on National Guard troops and Chavez supporters who were filmed shooting from a bridge. Chavez backers say the police were responsible.
Defense lawyer Jose Luis Tamayo condemned the sentence, calling it “a trophy for President Chavez.”
“They’ve convicted a big group of Venezuelan citizens here without proof,” said Tamayo, who said prosecutors used photographs of several officers holding guns rather than any forensic evidence linking them to the killings.
He said prosecutors “didn’t even prove the metropolitan police’s weapons were fired” and that the judge exercised a “Nazi interpretation” of the evidence.
Lawyer Antonio Molina, who represents some of the government supporters who were killed, said: “This isn’t political vengeance as they’ve wanted to sell it.”
He said the sentence has “done justice” and that police had been acting as the “armed wing” of government opponents who tried to topple Chavez.
The Caracas city government and police force were led by Chavez opponents at the time of the coup.
Relatives of the ex-policemen — some teary-eyed and angry — condemned the decision outside the courthouse in north-central Aragua state. Some accused Chavez’s government of using the legal system to frame opponents.
“I expected this sort of sentence because this is a political trial,” Nubia Vivas, a sister of the former police chief, told reporters.
Yesenia Fuentes, a member of the pro-government Association of April 11 Victims, said she was pleased with the sentence.
“It set a precedent. There won’t be a police officer who messes with a Venezuelan citizen and doesn’t go to jail,” she said.
One police officer who had originally faced charges, Rafael Neazoa, was acquitted by the jury, prosecutors said. Another, Ramon Zapata, was sentenced to three years for covering up police involvement and will go free because he has already spent six years in jail, the Attorney General’s Office said.
Liliana Ortega, director of the Venezuelan human rights watchdog group Cofavic, said the sentence contributes to “impunity because one of the most serious problems we’ve seen concretely in this case is that there have been serious deviations from due process.”
One of Japan’s biggest pop stars and best-known TV hosts, Masahiro Nakai, yesterday announced his retirement over sexual misconduct allegations, reports said, in the latest scandal to rock Japan’s entertainment industry. Nakai’s announcement came after now-defunct boy band empire Johnny & Associates admitted in 2023 that its late founder, Johnny Kitagawa, for decades sexually assaulted teenage boys and young men. Nakai was a member of the now-disbanded SMAP — part of Johnny & Associates’s lucrative stable — that swept the charts in Japan and across Asia during the band’s nearly 30 years of fame. Reports emerged last month that Nakai, 52, who since
EYEING A SOLUTION: In unusually critical remarks about Russian President Vladimir Putin, US President Donald Trump said he was ‘destroying Russia by not making a deal’ US President Donald Trump on Wednesday stepped up the pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin to make a peace deal with Ukraine, threatening tougher economic measures if Moscow does not agree to end the war. Trump’s warning in a social media post came as the Republican seeks a quick solution to a grinding conflict that he had promised to end before even starting his second term. “If we don’t make a ‘deal,’ and soon, I have no other choice but to put high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States, and various other
‘BALD-FACED LIE’: The woman is accused of administering non-prescribed drugs to the one-year-old and filmed the toddler’s distress to solicit donations online A social media influencer accused of filming the torture of her baby to gain money allegedly manufactured symptoms causing the toddler to have brain surgery, a magistrate has heard. The 34-year-old Queensland woman is charged with torturing an infant and posting videos of the little girl online to build a social media following and solicit donations. A decision on her bail application in a Brisbane court was yesterday postponed after the magistrate opted to take more time before making a decision in an effort “not to be overwhelmed” by the nature of allegations “so offensive to right-thinking people.” The Sunshine Coast woman —
PINEAPPLE DEBATE: While the owners of the pizzeria dislike pineapple on pizza, a survey last year showed that over 50% of Britons either love or like the topping A trendy pizzeria in the English city of Norwich has declared war on pineapples, charging an eye-watering ￡100 (US$124) for a Hawaiian in a bid to put customers off the disputed topping. Lupa Pizza recently added pizza topped with ham and pineapple to its account on a food delivery app, writing in the description: “Yeah, for ￡100 you can have it. Order the champagne too! Go on, you monster!” “[We] vehemently dislike pineapple on pizza,” Lupa co-owner Francis Wolf said. “We feel like it doesn’t suit pizza at all,” he said. The other co-owner, head chef Quin Jianoran, said they kept tinned pineapple
RSS