RUPERTO SÁNCHEZ: A LIEUTENANT IN DISGRACE  By Nasbly Kalinina /@nasbly

NOTI-AMERICA.COM (VENEZUELA)

RUPERTO SÁNCHEZ: A LIEUTENANT IN DISGRACE

By Nasbly Kalinina /@nasbly

On May 15, 2014, Lieutenant Colonel Ruperto Chiquinquirá Sánchez Casares was detained in Caracas by officers of the Directorate General of Military Counterintelligence (DGCIM). He and nine other officers were charged for an alleged coup d’état that the government called Operation Jericho.

Nicolas Maduro said on television that the detainees were traitors financed by the United States government. President Maduro’s rhetoric was designed to indict and convict the accused.

Maduro’s rhetoric was parroted by the former president of the National Assembly, Diosdado Cabello.

Ruperto spent three months in the basement of the DGCIM with the light on day and night as a form of torture.

After the preliminary hearing, the detainees were sent to Ramo Verde military prison to await trial. The defendants waited six months for their trial to begin, they were not allowed to call witnesses. The prosecution, however, called 96 witnesses whose testimony refuted Ruperto’s alleged crime of inciting rebellion. Declared guilty on May, 5th 2015, despite lack of evidence, Ruperto was sentenced to serve seven years and three months in La Pica prison in Monagas. The prison is nine hours from where his family lives.

Ruperto’s wife now manages the difficult task of being both father and mother to the couple’s 14-year-old son and 9-year-old daughter, attending not only to the needs of her children but also to those of her husband, for whom she has exhausted all legal resources, nationally and internationally.

Ruperto is one of 420 political prisoners tracked by Foro Penal, the Venezuelan human rights organization that provides pro bono legal assistance to people subject to arbitrary detentions and their relatives.

Stories such as Ruperto’s keep happening. Volunteers and advocates are desperately needed help until every political prisoner is released.

#ItsTimeForMercy #FreeRuperto #LetJusticeBeDone