Venezuela: opposition leader Juan Requesens sentenced to 8 years in prison

Deputy Juan Requesens was sentenced to 8 years in prison, charged with conspiracy offenses, for an event that occurred in 2018. Then, two small drones exploded in the air at a military parade in which Nicolás Maduro was present. Maduro described it as an assassination attempt. Requesens' lawyer, Joel Garcia, released the news Thursday on Twitter.

Sixteen other people were sentenced for the same acts, some of whom have received 30-year sentences. Requesens' lawyer assures that the Venezuelan prosecution "could not prove responsibility in any of the seven crimes" for which the regime tried the former deputy. He also assured that his client should have been "acquitted, but our justice system has been hijacked".

A regime that violates due process

Juan Requesens was elected deputy of the Venezuelan National Assembly for the 2016-2020 term. This granted him parliamentary immunity, a figure established in the Article 200 of the Venezuelan Magna Carta which establishes that: "The deputies to the National Assembly shall enjoy immunity in the exercise of their functions from the moment of their proclamation until the conclusion of their term of office or their resignation...".

The article further provides that in case of flagrante delicto, the competent authority shall take the suspect into custody at his residence and immediately communicate the fact to the Supreme Court of Justice, which may order his arrest, subject to the authorization of the National Assembly. This will enable him to continue his prosecution. However, in 2018 the regime kidnapped Requesens, without due process being followed, and he was taken to the dungeons of the Secret Service of National Intelligence (Sebin) until 2020, when his sentence was commuted to house arrest.

Requesens has allegedly received humiliating and intimidating treatment inside the Sebin. In a video broadcast on social networks that was taken at the Bolivarian torture headquarters, the former parliamentarian appears visibly thinner, somewhat confused and with his clothes full of excrement. According to journalist Alberto Rodríguez, Maduro's agents had drugged the then deputy.

A case that shook Venezuela was the arrest of councilman Fernando Albán, charged for the same event for which Requesens was accused. The regime also took him to the Sebin, where he was allegedly murdered, according to his family, relatives and even the Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS) Luis Almagro.

The version of the Maduro regime's spokesmen was that he committed suicide. The truth is that the regime did not allow the family to have access to the body or to perform an independent autopsy. For his part, the then deputy Julio Borges, said he had information that Albán died having been the victim of multiple tortures and that he was thrown into the void.