Writing at the Guardian, journalist Rory Carroll covers the story of Eligio Cedeño's release and the subsequent jailing of the judge who issued the order. Robert Amsterdam is interviewed below:Police arrested Judge María Afiuni, court bailiffs and a defence lawyers after her ruling allowed Eligio Cedeño, a banker facing corruption charges, to walk free last week.
Chávez, who has taken a close interest in the case, responded furiously, suggesting Afiunio had been bribed to facilitate an escape.
"A judge who frees a criminal is much, much, much more serious than the criminal himself," he said in a televised speech. "This judge should get the maximum penalty... 30 years in prison. That judge has to pay for what she has done."
He said he had discussed the affair with the head of the supreme court, and had demanded "firmness". Venezuela's independence hero, Simón Bolívar, he added, would have had the judge shot. Soon after the president's intervention, Afiuni was charged with corruption and abuse of power.
Legal scholars and opposition politicians said the row showed the judicial system had lost its independence and was suborned to Chávez's socialist revolution.
The Caracas bar association president, Yvett Lugo, said Afiuni's ruling was in line with the law and that her arrest marked a breakdown of the rule of the law and the principle of separation of powers.
Robert Amsterdam, one of Cedeño's lawyers, said the case was a blow to democratic freedom. "There was a time that judges who failed to follow Chávez's instructions risked being removed from the bench. Judicial independence had been on life support, but sadly, it is now officially dead."
The judge is being held at a women's prison outside Caracas whose inmates could include people she sentenced, said Amsterdam. "Her life is at risk."
The court bailiffs who were arrested have been released, but José Rafael Parra, a defence lawyer who was in court when his client was freed, remains in custody.
A fresh warrant has been issued for the arrest of Cedeño, whose whereabouts remain unknown.
Once a high-flying banker - part of a group known as the "boligarchs", who have grown immensely wealthy under Chávez - he was jailed in February 2007 and accused of improper currency exchange transactions.
Held for almost three years at the headquarters of the investigative police, Disip, with no trial in sight, the 45-year-old became one of Venezuela's highest-profile prisoners.
Afiuni conditionally released him last Thursday in a hearing where prosecutors were absent. She reportedly led Cedeño through a door and allowed him to take a private lift, avoiding Disip agents. He was last seen on the back of a motorbike.
Chávez supporters said the judge had been paid to facilitiate the "escape", and that this showed much of the judiciary remained in the hands of a corrupt mafia.
Cedeño's lawyers said the ruling was based primarily on the opinion of a UN-mandated panel of legal experts known as the working group on arbitrary detentions. The opinion, which has yet to be considered by the UN's human rights council, was submitted to the judge.
Chávez has filled the supreme court with supporters and said the separation of powers weakened the state - but also that the judicial system remained autonomous.
Last week the supreme court head, Luisa Estela Morales, said Venezuela had moved from "a rigid separation of powers" toward a system characterised by "intense co-ordination" between government branches.
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