PROTESTS IN VENEZUELA | Claims of ill-treatment of detainees "They battered us while we lay stacked up like pancakes" JOSEPH POLISZUK | EL UNIVERSAL Saturday March 29, 2014
The nephew of a Supreme Court justice is among those denouncing torture in Carabobo state. "An officer ordered to place the motorcycles up front to shield themselves from view. That's when they ran the motorcycle over me." "Instead of an officer saying ‘you're under arrest,' I was struck in the face by the butt end of a weapon. My glasses were smashed and I went blind in the left eye"
Jorge Luis León tells of the blows and kicks he and two of his friends were inflicted in a 48-hour ordeal at the hands of the Bolivarian National Guard (C. Ramírez)
Jorge Luis León's glasses were smashed when a National Guard officer struck him in the face with the butt of a weapon in the small hours of February 13, in Valencia (the capital of Carabobo state and Venezuela's third largest city). During the following 48 hours he was run over by a motorcycle, and beaten up while he and other 10 companions in misfortune were forced to lie stacked up in a pile.
"They repeatedly beat us while we lay stacked up on top of each other like pancakes," he says. They were smacked with metal helmets, even bludgeoned with the butt end of shotguns. León only remembers himself praying an Our Father and a Hail Mary under a pile of young men he had never seen before. "Two friends of mine were there with me; the rest I met there," he says.
On the night of February 12 he came by the elevated bridge in the El Trigal neighborhood to join in anti-government protests called by Carabobo state students. But on getting there he felt some misgiving about some hooded protesters and their motorbikes, so he and his friends decided to walk a safe distance a block away into the Pedro Gual street while the National Guard was firing tear gas canisters at stone-throwing protesters.
Jorge Luis León (25) thought it best to wait out in his car, but suddenly he was surrounded by a group of military who even climbed on the hood of a car that was later set ablaze. "I stepped out of my car with my hands on the back of my head," he says. "My father always advised me to obey police orders so nothing wrong would happen to me, but instead of an officer saying ‘you're under arrest,' I was struck in the face by the butt of a weapon. My glasses were smashed and I went blind in the left eye."
A spate of kicking and insulting ensued right there and then, while motorists looked on. The ordeal would resume with a vengeance at the National Guard's Urban Security Detachment (Desur), next to the infamous Tocuyito prison, and was to last for 48 hours.
"I saw the guards jump on my friend Juan Carrasco, and then they dragged us to the elevated bridge to make believe they'd caught us there," he says. "They realized that driving by motorists could see them, so an officer ordered the rest to place the motorcycles up front to shield themselves from view. That's when they ran the motorcycle over me."
Another spate of blows ensued. ‘Beat them up so they'll learn,' a female National Guard officer kept yelling. They were thrown into a van where the beating resumed. "They treated us like footballs, kicking us from one guardsman to another," he recalls.
They were carted off to the Urban Security Detachment where, by way of welcome, the guardsmen sicced the drug dogs on them. ‘Kill them! Kill them!' they yelled.
The young men were handed gasoline-soaked rags to wipe the blood, but the guards later seemed to realize that gasoline can be identified by chemical analysis.
They were threatened with rape, and were forced to remain on their knees for hours while being kicked and insulted. "They charged their weapons close to our ears, and applied electrical shocks close enough to scare us," he says.
The guardsmen kept telling them that a roundabout prison trip was in store for them. ‘You're not going to be arraigned; you'll go straight into the black hole. If public prosecutors show up, that means you'll be thrown into Tocuyito or Tocorón prisons."
And indeed León and the rest of the young men detained with him did believe it. "We could overhear the Carabobo prosecutor calling the prison wardens on the phone, asking ‘How are things there?'‘ Are you too crowded?' ‘Any room left for some young fellows, some students?'"
Jorge Luis León is a 3rd year student of law and an amateur DJ. The guards that searched him found a justice's card on him. When they went through his wallet and found a badge they started to get nervous. "They asked me where I worked, and I replied that Oscar León Uzcátegui, a Supreme Court justice, was my uncle".
The military stepped outside for a moment, and then León's cellmates started asking him to use his influence to get them out of there. "They kept telling me, ‘Ask your uncle to get us out of jail.' But what could I do?"
But the beatings did not stop there. The next morning they were beaten up even as they were carted off to court. But the van was ordered to return to headquarters due to the protests in Valencia demanding the release of the 10 young men.
An improvised hearing for arraignment was thus held at the command headquarters of the Bolivarian National Guard where they were detained, which, the student of law contends, violates the most basic principles of criminal law.
The hearing for arraignment was held at the dining room of the military facility. When he was given the opportunity to put forward his version of the facts, León –who had recovered the sight of his left eye-noticed that many of the officers who arrested him were listening behind a glass in the kitchen side of the dining room.
"Around half the troops were watching the hearing and listening to what we had to say about them," he says. "I looked at them in terror; their faces read: ‘GO ON TALKING, WE'RE GOING TO KILL YOU; PRAY THAT YOU WON'T BE STAYING HERE BECAUSE YOU'RE GOING TO DIE."
To the already long list of irregularities, León adds the fact that prosecutors may not add further crimes to those set forth in the indictment, as was the case with the improvised hearing for arraignment held at the dining room of the military facility.
In the end, the 11 young men were released on probation. León was luckier than most: instead of being placed under house arrest, his probation order only included the prohibition on leaving the country. Healthwise, his treating physicians at Clínica La Viña in Valencia diagnosed him with skull fractures, a perforated left ear drum, and loss of cerebrospinal fluid, the fluid that cushions and protects the central nervous system against trauma.
Translated by Sancho Araujo
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