Yesterday around noon, when we heard reports that the political prisoner Eligio Cedeño, a client whom I represent, had finally been released on parole from his unlawful detention after almost three full years of imprisonment without conviction of any crime, our spirits were strong. This would be the first Christmas that Eligio would be able to spend with his family since 2007.
Then within hours, the political prosecutors began taking their revenge, placing under arrest Judge María Lourdes Afiuni,
a person who did nothing more than perform her job, administer justice
as a member of a supposedly independent judiciary, and declare Cedeño's
continued incarceration as illegal. It was this fair judicial decision,
based upon various opinions from independent international bodies which
had also found Cedeño's detention to be arbitrary, which released him -
not an "escape" as reported by some media, not a "conspiracy" as
alleged by the political prosecutors, but a normal, regular legal
decision which any true rule of law court would have made years ago.
Today things got worse, as the government decided that Judge Afiuni wouldn't be the last hostage to be taken and threatened. We have reports now that lawyer close to Cedeño, José Rafael Parra Saluzzo, has also been arrested and is being held at the military police headquarters (DIM) - and I can honestly say that we deeply fear for his safety given the record of this regime. We all remember the outrageous stories of disappearing lawyers during the Danilo Anderson case who would later turn up dead, shot while "resisting arrest." The Chávez government must be made aware that the world knows they are holding José Rafael and others in their custody.
As if the situation couldn't bear more absurdity, both Attorney General Luisa Ortega Díaz gave interviews to the press slandering Judge Afiuni, while on a cadena to the nation on television President Hugo Chávez further personally attacked both Cedeño and the judge, calling them "banditos." Both of these members of the government helped to display a high level of personal involvement in the case, underscoring the point we have repeatedly made: Cedeño is a victim of political persecution.
We should not be surprised that Afiuni is being persecuted for doing her job. In these kinds of political cases, there is a long history of the state attacking various officers of the court who do not fulfill the orders of the executive. In 2007, another judge, Yuri López, who had merely admitted one complaint filed by Cedeño, was threatened, fired, and chased into exile after an attempted kidnapping of one of her children. Earlier this year, one of the lead prosecutors testified about the numerous irregularities in the case against Cedeño, in response to a federal subpoena in Miami. That prosecutor was later threatened with arrest in Venezuela and was forced to flee the country. In November, after an appellate panel in Caracas determined that Cedeño's pretrial detention had gone on too long, the judge who issued the opinion was removed from the court of appeals and demoted.
Afiuni took a principled stand and issued a decision that in her capacity as a judge she saw as consistent with the law. She did not commit any illegal act. But in Venezuela, the price of performing justice is high.
So for now, Chávez, Ortega Díaz, and others will spread all the lies they possibly can to make it seem as though the release of Cedeño were somehow illegal or that it was an "escape" or a "conspiracy." But the problem is that they can't prove their case - the detention of Cedeño WAS illegal (there is a maximum of two years without conviction), he did not commit the crimes he is accused of (this is why the first trial was adjourned the night before the verdict acquitting him in 2007), and the position of the defense is backed up by important opinions and statements published by diverse international bodies, not least the International Commission of Jurists.
This is not criminal justice, ladies and gentlemen, this is a situation of justice becoming a crime.
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