Ronald Ojeda: Chile’s protest against Venezuela for the murder of the former military man

The president of Chile, Gabriel Boric, announced this Thursday that Chile will send a “note of protest” to Venezuela over the statements made by that country’s attorney general, Tarek William Saab, regarding the murder of former Venezuelan military officer Ronald Ojeda.

Saab speculated that Chilean officials and officials from other countries participated in the kidnapping and murder of Ojedawho was an opponent of the government of Nicolás Maduro and had lived as a political refugee in Chile since 2018.

“In this operation, Chilean intelligence bodies and foreigners with spurious interests may have participated,” he stated.

Ojeda He was kidnapped in Santiago on February 21, 2024 and his body was found 10 days later inside a suitcase buried under cement. Since then, Venezuelan opponents denounced that the kidnappers were agents of the Maduro government, something that has not been proven.

On April 11, the Chilean Prosecutor’s Office assured that the crime “was organized by the Aragua Train,” which “It was organized from Venezuela” and had political motivations.

“If we analyze all the causes, the only investigative line we have left is the one we are working on, and that is that the profile of the victim is political, since he has participated in actions against the government of Venezuela,” added prosecutor Héctor Barros. .

Prosecutor Saab referred to this in his statements this Wednesday. He said that indeed there was an intention to politicize the murderbut it is not the one that “has been being considered in the Chilean media and that the Chilean Prosecutor’s Office has not wanted to deny or corroborate.”

“We consider that Ojeda’s murder is a false flag operationan operation that had the objective of clouding relations between Chile and Venezuela, just when a very important rapprochement was taking place,” he stated.

The Chilean president responded to these statements by saying that “the prosecutor’s office and the public ministry are carrying out a serious investigation” in this regard and that, if the Venezuelan prosecutor’s office has other antecedents, it must make them available to the Chilean prosecutor’s office.

“The comments of the Venezuelan prosecutor effectively show that “There is no adequate will to be able to resolve a case that is tremendously complex,” Boric said.

In April, prosecutor Barros indicated that Venezuela had been formally requested to cooperate in arrest two Venezuelan citizens related to the case that are believed to be on Venezuelan soil.

That request was reiterated by the Chilean Undersecretary of the Interior Manuel Monsalve this Wednesday after Saab’s statements.

“What Chile expects is that Venezuela collaborates, and collaborating means collaborating with facts, not just with statements, and in this case the facts that interest us are the location and detention of the two people requested by the prosecution. That collaboration has not yet materialized“, said.

This Thursday’s claim from Chile to Venezuela occurs when The relationship between the two countries is deteriorating.

At the beginning of April, Chile called its ambassador in Caracas for consultations after the Venezuelan Foreign Minister, Yván Gil, denied the existence of the Aragua Train.

“The Aragua Train is a fiction created by the international media to try to create a non-existent label,” he said.

Given this, President Gabriel Boric expressed: “The irresponsible statements of the Chancellor of Venezuela, ignoring the existence of the Aragua Train, They are worrying and constitute a serious insult to those who have been victims of this organization.”

“In addition, they demonstrate a lack of commitment to the necessary international cooperation in matters of security, which is neither fair nor tolerable,” he added.

Saab, the Venezuelan attorney general, responded to that by saying that the Aragua Train had been “completely dismantled.”

Added to this disagreement was the case of Ojeda, the former Venezuelan opposition soldier kidnapped and murdered in Chile.

Initially, Venezuelan prosecutor Tarek William Saab had shown a willingness to cooperate to find and arrest “immediately” those allegedly involved in Ojeda’s crime who were in Venezuela.

But Saab’s recent statements in which he indicated that Chilean intelligence agents may have participated in the crime heated things up again between the two countries.

“When is insulted, or denigrated, or questioned to the institutions of our country, we have to respond very clearly and firmly, as our chancellor has done, as I am doing,” Boric said this Thursday.

The Chilean government has also accused the Venezuelan government of not collaborating with the region’s security at other times.

For example, when a Venezuelan citizen who had an expulsion order from Chile was one of those responsible for the murder of Lieutenant Emmanuel Sánchez Soto in Santiago.

According to the authorities, many expulsion orders have not been carried out due to the “weak” collaboration from Caracas.

In any case, for now The Chilean government rules out breaking relations with Venezuela.

The body of Ronald Ojeda, kidnapped on February 21 in Chile by individuals posing as police officers, was found ten days later in a 1.4 meter deep ditch and under a cement block in Santiago.

Ojeda was not a high-profile person, but he became known when Venezuelan authorities He was arrested in 2017 along with three other soldiers for their alleged involvement in acts with “conspiratorial purposes and planning of terrorist actions.”

The four were charged with the crimes of rebellion, instigation of rebellion, mutiny and betrayal of the country.

Ojeda escaped from jail in November 2017 during a transfer and claimed that he had been subjected to torture.

The Chilean government granted him political asylum in 2023.

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