Up To 30 Years In Jail For Ex-MP, 16 Others Over Alleged Hit On Maduro

Caracas, Aug 5 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 5th Aug, 2022 ) :A Venezuelan court on Thursday sentenced an opposition ex-MP and 16 others to jail terms of up to 30 years for an alleged exploding drone attack against President Nicolas Maduro in 2018.

The former lawmaker, Juan Requesens, was sentenced to eight years in jail "for the crime of conspiracy," his lawyer Joel Garcia said on Twitter after the hearing.

Sentences for the other 16 ranged from five to 30 years on charges of terrorism, criminal association, murder, treason and detonating an explosive in public.

Twelve of the accused received the highest sentence.

Sentencing came exactly four years after two drones packed with explosives flew towards Maduro as he addressed a military parade in Caracas and blew up, injuring seven soldiers.

The president claimed an attempted "assassination," and 30 people, including serving generals and Requesens, were arrested in the aftermath.

Caracas accused the government of then-Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos of being behind the attack with backing from the United States and Peru.

"These types of deeds cannot go unpunished and deserve the maximum penalty," Attorney General Tarek William Saab said on Thursday, insisting the accused had received "due process." But Gonzalo Himiob of the NGO Foro Penal, which advocates for "political prisoners," said the sentences "are aimed at supporting the false narrative of those in power of an alleged assassination attempt." The convicted individuals "are scapegoats," he added.

Within days of the arrest of Requesens, now 33, the authorities circulated a video in which he admitted having had contact with an alleged plotter.

The political opposition claimed he had been threatened or drugged, and Garcia insisted there was no evidence against his client.

Requesens was transferred from jail to house arrest in 2020 while awaiting trial. It was unclear where he would serve his sentence.

His father, also Juan Requesens, took to Twitter to express his "eternal repudiation of tyrants and tyranny" after the sentencing.

And opposition leader Juan Guaido, recognized by the United States and other countries as Venezuela's interim president after Maduro's disputed 2018 re-election, said "the dictatorship kidnapped him (Requesens) and has kept him captive as a means of persecuting all who resist." Army general Hector Hernandez Da Costa, 56, was sentenced to 16 years in prison.

Emirlendris Benitez and Yolmer Escalona, received the maximum penalty of 30 years, despite lawyers claiming the couple had been responding to a taxi callout when arrested.

According to Foro Penal, there were 245 "political prisoners" in Venezuela on August 1.

But Maduro, on Twitter, recalled the day four years ago as a moment when "enemies attacked peace in Venezuela," and affirmed: "We remain firm, united, conscious and ready for the fight." In an unrelated case, a Venezuelan court issued an arrest warrant against journalist Carla Angola, a US resident, for the crime of "defending" the "assassination" attempt of Maduro.

This came after Angola appeared on a talkshow and said people who asked why the United States did not assassinate Maduro were posing "a valid question," though she stressed she was not advocating murder.

Saab said his office had requested the warrant in the belief that Angola had "instigated the perpetration of an assassination against the President of the Republic."