In Venezuela, opposition candidate summoned for criminal investigation

Attorney General Tarek William Saab believes the opposition website is usurping the power of the National Electoral Council.

Venezuelan opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, who claims victory in the July 28 presidential election, will be summoned by the prosecutor’s office for a criminal investigation, Attorney General Tarek William Saab told reporters on Friday, August 23. Saab explained that the website on which the opposition published its presidential results “usurp[ait]” the power of the National Electoral Council (CNE).

“He must attend this summons to speak (…) about his responsibility before July 28, during July 28 and after July 28 for his ‘recalcitrance’, his disobedience to the legitimately constituted authorities”added the magistrate. “He will have to take responsibility” he stressed. The prosecutor accuses the opposition in particular of the post-election violence. The announcement of Nicolas Maduro’s re-election provoked spontaneous demonstrations, which were brutally repressed. They left 27 dead, 192 people injured and 2,400 arrested, according to official sources.

The public prosecutor’s office opened investigations on August 6, in particular: “usurpation of functions, dissemination of false information, incitement to disobedience of the laws, incitement to insurrection, criminal association” against Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia and opposition leader Maria Corina Machado. They “announce a false winner of the presidential election (…) openly incite police officers and the military to disobey”, according to the statement from the public prosecutor’s office in early August. The two opposition leaders have been living in semi-clandestine conditions since the beginning of the month

The Supreme Court on Thursday validated the re-election of Nicolas Maduro for a third 6-year term, ensuring that it would forward to the prosecutor’s office the file of Mr. Gonzalez Urrutia who had not appeared for the summons of the high court. Nicolas Maduro, 61, was declared the winner with 52% of the vote by the CNE, which however did not make public the minutes of the polling stations, saying it was the victim of computer hacking.

The United States and ten Latin American countries have rejected the Venezuelan justice decision to validate Nicolas Maduro’s victory in the July 28 presidential election, according to a joint statement released in Quito. Venezuela called it a“unacceptable act of interference” this rejection of the Supreme Court’s decision.