Former Venezuelan AG Files Complaint against Maduro at The Hague Latin American Herald Tribune November 17, 2017
Luisa Ortega Diaz said more than 1,000 pieces of evidence, gathered from medical reports, inspections, and interviews, had been turned over to ICC prosecutors
THE HAGUE – Ousted Venezuelan Attorney General Luisa Ortega Diaz filed on Thursday a complaint at the International Criminal Court in The Hague regarding alleged human rights abuses carried out by Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro.
Ortega Diaz spoke to media minutes after submitting her report against Maduro and several of his ministers at The Hague.
“They have committed crimes of assassination, torture, imprisonment as well as a systematic and general attack against the civilian population,” the former Maduro ally turned critic said, reading from a statement.
She said more than 1,000 pieces of evidence, gathered from medical reports, inspections, and interviews, had been turned over to ICC prosecutors.
Ortega Diaz said that some 8,000 people had been assassinated in Venezuela on the orders of the government between 2015-2017.
“We deemed it necessary to make this case international because there is no justice in Venezuela. It is not possible (there) to bring those responsible for these crimes against humanity to justice,” she added.
As well as implicating Maduro, the former Attorney General filed complaints against Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez; Interior and Justice Minister Nestor Reverol; the chief of the SEBIN security and intelligence service, Gustavo Gonzalez Lopez; and the head of the capital’s district government and former National Guard chief, Antonio Benavides Torres.
She requested that the Court issue international arrest warrants against those listed in the complaint.
Ortega Diaz was removed from her post in August following a decision taken by the newly established and controversial Constituent National Assembly, which was created illegally by Maduro allies to revise the republic’s constitution at a time of widespread violent protests.
The Constituent National Assembly replaced the National Assembly, the democratically-elected legislative body that had been under the control of the opposition.
Maduro’s opposition, including Ortega Diaz, warned that the socialist president, who succeeded the late Hugo Chavez, was staging a power grab.
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