"Welcome to hell": The OAS listens to testimonies of those tortured in Venezuela and asks the ICC to issue arrest warrants against the Maduro regime

This Friday, a panel of international experts called on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to issue arrest warrants against members of the Nicolás Maduro regime. This petition is based on the presentation of a detailed report on the crimes against humanity perpetrated in Venezuela, supported by the heartbreaking testimonies of several victims.

The Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), Luis Almagro, convened four experts to review the human rights situation in Venezuela based on a representative sample of 183 notorious cases of human rights violations - murders, torture, arbitrary detention and political persecution.

The result of this review was presented in a report titled Venezuela’s Impunity Gap Enabling Further Crimes, which highlights the extensive repression against civil rights activists, victims and their families.

Following the presentation of the report, the experts urged the ICC to “open investigations against specific individuals and advance these cases before the Court in order to issue arrest warrants.” Likewise, they asked to focus their investigations “on medium and high-level perpetrators as a matter of urgency, to prevent further crimes from being committed,” noting that “the impunity gap is significant.”

Victim testimony

During the session, several victims of the regime shared their experiences before the Organization of American States (OAS), revealing the horrors to which they were subjected.

Jesus Alemán, a former political prisoner, described some of the most terrible moments he experienced after being kidnapped by the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service (SEBIN). “They gave me electric shocks on my back and chest. They denied me medical assistance. My flesh was falling apart; I could see the tendons in my feet,” he said.

“After each hit, they laughed (…) I didn’t know if I was dead or in a nightmare,” he added.

Nixon Leal, another former political prisoner, revealed that he was a victim of “forced disappearance,” which led his mother to even look for him in the morgue. “Welcome to hell,” Leal was told before being sent to a cell.

Leal shared that when they kidnapped him, they covered his head and threw insecticide and tear gas at him, which caused him to suffer respiratory arrest.

“One day they stuck bedbugs in my fingernails (...) I wanted to commit suicide. I tried to hang myself with my own sweater, but I couldn’t: I was handcuffed,” he said.

Luis de la Sotta, a ship captain who was imprisoned for more than five years, narrated that he was deprived of food and that he had to relieve himself on the ground while he was detained. “They forced me to undress, even in the presence of female staff. They hit me on the head; they insulted me; they made fun of me; they told me that they were going to rape my wife, that human rights did not exist,” he told the panel of experts.

Olga González, wife of a victim of the 2017 protests, reported that her husband was surprised by police officers who chased them and shot them 21 times. “When they checked him, my husband had four candies in his pocket; those were his ‘weapons’ (...) Here there was an extrajudicial execution (...) there was a massacre,” she expressed with pain.