Last week Andrés Cañizález had an important comment on Gustavo Azócar, a journalist currently in jail in Santa Ana in the state of Táchira, which I posted to the Spanish side of this blog but haven't had time to translate until now. So here it is:
A Judicial Web
The case of journalist Gustavo Azocar - a prisoner in Santa Ana jail in Táchira symbolizes, in a very raw way, how the justice system in Venezuela can build a web to penalize a person without ultimately having any proof that the person is guilty. So far no judge has shown that Azócar, a very critical voice in the region, is the one responsible for failing to transmit radio messages about the Táchira Lottery in 2000. Because this is the accusation that weighs on Azócar, and looking at it carefully one can understand this trial as a take air out of him, to silence him.
When the trial was nearing completion, after 28 hearings, a new judge appointed by the Executive Directorate of the Judiciary decided to annul the whole process and start from scratch, on 5 October. For the new judge, the trial was flawed, but nevertheless maintained a measure that emerged from the previous process: the detainment of Azócar. This contravenes the right to be tried in freedom, and thus two well-known international organizations defending freedom of expression have demanded that he be freed.
It is worth recalling that Azócar, at this moment, is the only journalist in jail in Venezuela, and even though authorities insist on saying that the case is not officially related to his profession, the process presents some suspicious shortcomings. First, after all these years, justice still does not rule on the merits of a case. This is evidence of one of the most perverse aspects of how a politicized judicial system is managed: the judicial process itself, with its long delays, can be a mechanism to imprison someone who is critical of the government, without having evidence of his guilt.
The other major perversion of this trial is in its detention of Azócar. By law, a defendant is entitled to be tried in freedom. The exceptions are in cases in which there is a risk the defendant may attempt to flee the country. Azócar, for this same case, was imprisoned briefly in 2006, and at no point did he fail to appear in court, nor did he attempt to flee. To the contrary, with his daily TV show, the justice could confirm the journalist's presence in Táchira.
Another curiosity: the Táchira official who originated the complaint of "corruption", Ana Casanova, twice claimed health problems as reasons for failing to attend hearings, and this triggered the dismissal of the previous judge presiding over the trial. It is difficult not to believe that Azócar is the victim of a judicial web whose aim is to punish him for his political positions.
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