A true ordeal. That, neither more nor less, is what they experienced three Venezuelans who went through moments of horror like political prisoners of chavismo and that this Friday they told, for the first time, the torture to which they were subjected by the Nicolás Maduro regime. The testimonies are chilling.
Threats, humiliating treatment and terrifying images were some of the aberrant facts they described at the headquarters of the Organization of American States (OAS) in Washington, where an independent panel of experts presented their third report on “crimes against humanity” in Venezuela.
“After each blow I heard how they laughed and enjoyed the moment, His laughs were also devious.“, he claimed one of them, with a broken voice. His name is Jesus Germanwho was imprisoned twice in the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service (Sebin).
For this 31-year-old man, who had to leave his country in 2018, the beatings and electric shocks did not subdue his desire to “fight” for those who “are being tortured.”
“They covered my face with a black bag “It took my breath away,” he recalled. And he added: “They told me that every applause we received at the rallies, in the marches, in the concentrations, in the protests, I was going to feel it in blows.”
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Jesús Alemán, who was imprisoned twice in the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service (Sebin), was one of the survivors who recounted the torments he suffered as a political prisoner of Chavismo in Venezuela.
The moments when he was interrogated, he reviewed, were among the worst, if there were some more than others. “Each silence was equivalent to another beating. In those moments I could only think about my family, my girlfriend and my entire team,” he revived through tears.
“I felt that It was driving me crazy (…) without knowing if anyone knew of my whereabouts,” continued Alemán, who assured that he was being incriminated for crimes he did not commit. “There I saw that the death of a person is worth only one word; Just making a mistake and saying milk to milk and not telling them cow is a shot in the foot,” he said.
He also said that The conditions where they were housed were “inhumane”, that their physiological and toilet needs were carried out, when they were allowed, “through a collapsing duct.” “The water was up to my calves,” he said.
That context led him to get sick. He had scabies and fungus, he stated. But it wasn’t the only thing. “The flesh on my fingers was falling apart. I could even see the tendons in my toes,” he said, adding that “at all times” he was “denied medical assistance.”
“At the end of all this madness, still in prison (…) they presented me with three scenarios, “one was the possibility of leaving the country without ever being able to return again,” he continued. Before expatriation, they gave him one last warning.
“They told me that I had already been saved on two occasions and I couldn’t tell about the third time because they would kill me directly and the death would be in such a way that they would disappear from me, that They were going to cut me into pieces and play with my organs“, he said in a testimony crossed by pain.
“I wanted to commit suicide, but I couldn’t do it”
Nixon Leal He also gave his crude testimony. This former political prisoner who lives in the United States as a political refugee claims to have been “a prisoner of the dictatorship on more than five occasions.” The last one was “the most painful”, in the “DGCIM”, the General Directorate of Military Counterintelligence.
Some “men in black” kidnapped me and “tortured me for days.” One hit me in the stomach (…) I hanged myself for periods of time.”
One took “notes”, another “hit me hard in the face (…) said that if I didn’t collaborate he would go up a level.” “They sprayed insecticide near my nose and mouth.” and “tear gas”, which “caused me to stop breathing.”
“They wanted me to record a video where I admitted guilt and in turn I had to point out several political leaders to accuse them,” he noted. “Because I refused, one of them (…) stuck three bugs under my fingernails, one yellow, one blue and one red,” he added. .
“I wanted to commit suicide (…) I tried to hang myself with my own sweater tying him to the bars of a window that they opened just to observe what he was doing”, but he did not succeed because “he was handcuffed with his shoulders back and he barely felt them.” “I just wanted to do something for myself so I wouldn’t feel any more pain,” she justified his desperate and extreme resolution.
“I was presented before a military court with my face swollen and disfigured by blows,” he reviewed. And he addressed the judge: “Torture exists, if you don’t believe me, look at my face.”“.
Then, he stated: “They are facing a man who still considers himself a prisoner, because even though my body is in this place, my memory is still distributed” in each of those prisons. Despite that, “they are facing a man with renewed hope that justice can be done.
“My torturers were promoted by Maduro”
Luis de la Sotta is a Venezuelan ship captain who, since 2018, has been detained for five years, four months and 11 days in the custody of the DGCIM. “I denounced corruption and politicization within the national armed force in addition to refusing to say the motto of a political party,” he said.
“They suffocated me repeatedly with plastic bags. until they caused my nose to bleed, they placed guns on my temple simulating an execution, they beat me with sticks” and “they deprived me of sleep, placing me in a position of stress. “They made me afraid of dying,” she accused.
All “my torturers were promoted in military rank by Nicolás Maduro“, the president of Venezuela. “They insulted me, they made fun of me, they told me that they would rape my wife,” he recalled.
“I was in the insane cell, a torture cell with freezing temperatures, without a mattress, with a green panty, without underwear, they gave me food in a container that they threw on the floor, without cutlery, I had to eat with my hands full of excrement,” denounced the man who lost 25 kilos during his imprisonment.
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Luis de la Sotta is a Venezuelan ship captain who was detained in the custody of the DGCIM, and who recounted details of the torments he suffered.
And he continued: “Sometimes they deprived me of food. I did my solid physiological needs in a plastic bag, if I had one, otherwise I voided on the floor, urinated in a container and only had access to the shower once a week.”
“My wife and children had to flee the day after my arrest since they were looking for them to arrest them,” he said. “Less than 14 days ago I met them again,” she added.
After his case was featured in a report presented to the UN human rights council, he was “forced into a torture room” called “the vertical tomb” because it is “so narrow that you can only stand standing.”
