A group of seven unjustly detained and tortured Venezuelan minors aged 15 to 17 will soon be placed on trial for “terrorism,” the local newspaper El Carabobeño reported on Wednesday.
Regime officials detained the group of children, which includes a 16-year-old girl, during the recent wave of protests against socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro’s fraudulent election. Families denounced that the children were tortured and not given the right to due defense.
According to testimonies from the families, two of the minors have expressed suicidal intentions during their imprisonment.
Venezuelan authorities, without presenting any evidence, proclaimed Maduro the “winner” of the July 28 presidential election, a highly fraudulent electoral event where the socialist dictator appeared 13 times on the ballot alongside a handful of handpicked “rivals.” His only legitimate opponent was Edmundo González, a 75-year-old former diplomat who replaced banned frontrunner opposition candidate María Corina Machado on the ballot.
Voter tallies obtained by the opposition on the day of the sham election and recently presented before the Organization of American States indicate that González defeated Maduro in a landslide. González fled to Spain in September after the Maduro regime issued an arrest warrant against him for alleged electoral-related crimes.
Protests against Maduro’s fraudulent “victory” erupted in the hours following the election, crushed by a brutal persecution campaign that left 27 dead and more than 2,400 in prison, including more than 120 minors. Of these children, 69 remain arbitrarily detained as of Thursday, according to the non-government organization Foro Penal.
El Carabobeño explained in its latest report that the seven minors were arbitrarily detained between July 29 and 30 and are being held in police stations in Valencia and Libertador, two municipalities in the northern state of Carabobo.
Families of the teens informed the newspaper that a preliminary hearing took place in the afternoon hours of Wednesday in which a judge, identified as Keidimar Ramos Castillo, issued an offer: plead guilty and receive a sentence of six years and eight months in prison or face trial and risk ten years in prison as requested by the prosecution. According to the report, none of the minors agreed to the plea offer.
The families denounced that the children were beaten and tortured at the police stations. Some lost teeth, and one was reportedly electrocuted through his nipples. After being tortured, the families further denounced, the children were forced to record a video where they “admitted” that they were paid $30 to protest. The government reportedly denied family requests for forensic examinations.
The mother of the 16-year-old girl told El Carabobeño that the girl was detained on the night of July 29 in the town of Naguanagua when she went out to eat with three friends. The mother denounced that a man dressed in a military uniform told the girl that if she slept with him, he would give her freedom. Upon her refusal, the man seized her phone, beat her, and forced her to record a video attacking opposition leader Machado’s sister.
“With her ribs and arms beaten, they put her in a room full of stones, together with other detainees. She lasted three days without food or water,” the mother said. “Today she is with older women imprisoned for different crimes, who have beaten her.”
“Once she tried to commit suicide and a few days ago she told me that she is tired of being there, that she doesn’t want to go on like this,” the mother continued.
The families said that all seven children were represented by a public defender identified as Kelly Pérez, whose statements “did not last more than two minutes” and simply “whispered” for review of precautionary measures. Pérez reportedly disregarded the parents’ demands that she prove the innocence of their children and their status as either students or athletes. The parents also said they did not receive access to the court case files of their children.
The mother of another of the minors explained to the newspaper that her 15-year-old child turned 16 while imprisoned in August. She stated that neighbors recorded the moment the child was arrested and beaten before trying to escape, in which a policeman can be heard commanding, “Kill him.”
“He passed his fifth year of secondary school, he is a baseball prospect, this year they came from the big teams to see him,” the mother said. “We have all the mitigating factors for them to be granted a precautionary measure that would allow him to continue with his studies and his life. They are innocent; they have not done anything.”
“I was hoping that they would give him to me so I could take him to school. He is depressed, every time he sees me he says: ‘Mom, why am I here if I haven’t done anything?’” she continued. “He is a child. He is so depressed that he doesn’t even want to take a bath. I bring him food and he gives it away because he doesn’t want to eat.’”
According to El Carabobeño, the hearings for the seven children are slated to continue in the following days. The outlet said, “If everything continues as it has been, the fate of the detained adolescents, in the hands of Judge Keidimar Ramos Castillo and defenders such as Kelly Perez, does not give cause for hope.”
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
