Luis Manuel Marcano (1966, Caracas), a political asylum seeker in Chile, is one of the 33 judges who on July 21, 2017, after a public competition, appointed the Venezuelan Parliament, which had an opposition majority, to join the Supreme Court of Justice. , replacing the one that existed. Three days later, President Nicolás Maduro announced that he would arrest the 33 judges “one by one.” “These people they named, usurpers who are out there. They are all going to go to prison, one by one, one after the other. “They are all going to go to prison and they are all going to have their assets, accounts and everything frozen, and no one is going to defend them,” said the president.
Marcano has lived in Santiago since 2017. After Maduro’s announcement, he spent two months, between August and October, in the Chilean embassy in Venezuela during the Government of socialist president Michellet Bachelet (2006-2010, 2014-2018). The lawyer, historian and doctor in history, traveled to Chile with four other judges in the same situation, but only three, he, Beatriz Ruiz and Elenis Rodríguez, remain in the South American country. The 33 judges, today distributed between Chile, Colombia, Panama, Spain and the United States, have since formed the Supreme Court of Justice of Venezuela in exile.
“Unfortunately, our appointment was unsuccessful. We were sworn in but we could not take the charges because we were immediately persecuted,” says Marcano in a meeting at his house with EL PAÍS. “We are in no sense a Supreme Court as there may be in Venezuela, but we are a legitimate court that has moral power, since we accept universal jurisdiction for the defense of human rights. We know that our decisions are not enforceable, but rather moral approaches.”
After the kidnapping in Santiago on February 21 of Venezuelan dissident and political asylum Ronald Ojeda, Marcano, Ruiz and Rodríguez asked for police protection and were granted it. They did it on March 1, a few hours before Ojeda’s body was found under cement, with serious signs of torture. He was taken 10 days before dawn from his apartment by five men disguised as police officers. The prosecutor in the case, Héctor Barros, said in April that the Aragua Train was behind his murder but, in addition, that due to the profile of the victim, the only possible motive is political and that the crime was organized from Venezuela. He has also identified two suspects, Venezuelans Walter Rodríguez and Maickel Villegas, who fled Chile and would be in Venezuela, for which Chile is seeking their extradition.
Marcano, who has a scholarship from the Central University of Chile for a doctorate in law and is working on his thesis on judicial independence, has followed with special attention the Ojeda case. As a political asylum seeker, he says learning about his kidnapping “was alarming.” “We felt protected in Chile because it is a free, orderly country and its institutions gave us a hug of security, for which I am very grateful. And facing that hug, it was terrifying,” he says while taking a sip of coffee. “What we felt was concern, but not fear. Concern that the authorities are not aware that a foreign body operates in Chile,” he adds.
Ojeda’s crime has caused several diplomatic controversies between Caracas and Santiago. On June 6, for example, the attorney general of Venezuela, Tarek William Saab, contravening the investigation of prosecutor Barros, said that the murder was a “false flag operation” plotted by Chilean and foreign intelligence bodies with “spurious interests.” ”. The government of left-wing President Gabriel Boric has called his statements “unacceptable” and sent a note of protest. And this Friday, Saab, in his Ojeda case, this time to say that the Venezuelan Prosecutor’s Office has not wanted to cooperate with the investigation related to that unfortunate homicide.” He also pointed out that the records sent included the “immigration reports, biographical and biometric data of Walter Rodríguez and Maickel Villegas.”
From Europe, where he accompanies Boric on a tour, Foreign Minister Alberto Van Klaveren has said about Saab: “We are already accustomed to the statements of the national prosecutor. I have always said it: he is not the best person to really recommend any type of procedure to us.”
Ask. Is it common for prosecutors in Venezuela to issue opinions such as pointing out that Ojeda’s crime was a “false flag operation”?
Answer. It’s not usual. They are reckless, inconvenient and unprofessional opinions. Because when a prosecutor is going to make a statement, there has to be an investigation. Chile’s investigation is serious and I fully trust the Chilean Prosecutor’s Office.
Q. Did you think from the beginning that there could be a political motive in Ojeda’s crime?
R. I had no doubt that it was a political crime. However, he could not say anything publicly because it was an adventure that he did not want to take from the point of view of hindering the investigations. Ronald Ojeda’s characteristics were those of a second lieutenant who sold ice cream, had his wife, and worked as a surveillance supervisor. He was walking to his work and a person with those characteristics, who exposes himself like this, is not involved in anything bad.
Q. You, along with Beatriz Ruiz and Elenis Rodríguez, asked for police protection. Why did they do it?
R. Ojeda had the same characteristics as us. Furthermore, he was a militant against the dictatorship. Although I believe in judicial independence, and that independent justice is the backbone of a democratic system, I have become a militant, but of freedom. As long as the regime and the system are not changed in Venezuela, all criminals will take refuge in Venezuela, because article 69 of the Constitution prohibits extradition.
Q. Rodríguez and Villegas apparently fled to Venezuela. Is there naivety on the part of Chile in wanting his extradition? Is there another way to bring them?
R. Before the 2000 Constitution there was an extradition treaty between Venezuela and Chile. But when this Constitution comes into force and article 69 appears that prohibits the extradition of Venezuelans, there are no conditions. There is the Palermo Convention, but according to the Constitution of Venezuela, no international treaty can violate constitutional principles.
Q. So what possibility do you see in the Ojeda case If one way forward is to extradite the two accused?
R. They are not going to extradite them. First, because there is no political will and, second, because the Constitution prohibits it.
Q. And what would it mean to have political will?
R. That based on the seriousness of what is happening not only in Chile, but in Latin America, that there are criminals who go, commit crimes and return to Venezuela, Congress be constituted, a constitutional reform of article 69 be made and eliminate the ban on extradition. This is so that the Palermo agreement comes into operation and international cooperation for transnational crimes works.
Q. Any chance?
R. No, not right now. Until there is a change of government, all crimes committed by Venezuelan criminals abroad will not be punished. They are going to have impunity, because the prison system that currently exists is inefficient. Venezuelan prisons are nightclubs.
Q. So how do you see the outlook for the Ronald Ojeda case? Do you think there can be impunity?
R. As long as there is no change in Venezuela, this crime will go unpunished.
Q. At the end of May, two Venezuelan prosecutors landed in Chile for the Ojeda casebut the Public Ministry has the investigation folder reserved [y no les dio acceso].
R. The question is, what does a foreign prosecutor’s office come to do here when there is sovereignty over the investigation, from the point of view of the Chilean Constitution? That’s very delicate.
Q. Is this type of action by Venezuelan prosecutors usual?
R. No. That’s what Interpol is for, which is formed by officials from different police forces. What is this about two prosecutors coming here? This was a political crime, but I don’t know who there ordered it to be done.
Q. It was prosecutor Barros who said that the only motive left is political, after ruling out other thesis, and that the crime was organized in Venezuela.
R. That’s how it is. And for this investigation to reach the chain, from the executing author to the mediate authorship, that is, commonly known as the intellectual author, these people [Villegas y Rodríguez] I would have to declare.
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