CARACAS, Saturday December 04, 2004 | Update
*Several political parties Monday expressed concern about
the latest events in Venezuela amid investigations in connection
with national environment prosecutor Danilo Anderson's murder.
*Jorge Sucre, president of opposition Proyecto Venezuela
party, said President Hugo Chávez' government and its
security bodies have abused citizens and violated human rights.
"We are worried about some images we have seen, images of
repression and indiscriminate raids."
*Opposition Solidaridad party leader Ernesto Alvarenga said
"a persecution and repression policy is implemented" in Venezuela,
adding that the government is trying to make the opposition
give in.
*César Pérez Vivas, secretary general of opposition
Copei party, said: "Unfortunately, the facts have shown that
both the government and the Attorney General's Office are
behaving in a way that is contrary to a normal judiciary investigation
in a democratic society."
*Haydée Castillo, a former senator for opposition Copei
party, and mother of lawyer Antonio López, a suspect
in prosecutor Anderson's murder who was killed last week,
Monday told local Unión Radio that she does not trust
human justice but God's justice.
*She thinks that the people who killed her son, in an alleged
shootout with officers of the Scientific, Penal and Criminal
Investigations Corps (Cicpc) who linked him to a bomb attack
that killed Anderson, are to be punished by God.
*This is the first time Castillo talked to reporters since
November 23, when her son was killed and accused of involvement
in Anderson's slaying and authorities raided her house.
*She and her husband were subsequently held by the Cicpc
for questioning. According to Castillo, the couple's identity
documents and a cell phone were seized during their arrest.
She is also to report that electrical appliances and personal
goods are missing from her house following search by authorities.
*The couple has no idea why Cicpc officers were after their
son, and they do not understand why the authorities did not
detain López Castillo at home or in his office, but they
tried to stop him while driving his in his way to work.
*Haydée Castillo de López claimed that her brother
saw her son's body. "He told me he (my son) had 18 gun shots.
Apparently he was finished off with a shot at close range
to the chin. He had gunpowder traces. His car received countless
gunshots, but we have not seen it. We were isolated."
*"We never saw the Guevara brothers in our house. We do not
know whether our son was a friend of them, but we never heard
of them," claimed Haydée Castillo de López, a former
Senator for opposition Copei party, and Antonio López
Acosta, a former municipal comptroller.
*Interior and Justice Minister Jesse Chacón Tuesday
rejected reports that lawyer Antonio López was executed
by the state security bodies, and claimed that tests showed
that López did shoot at police officers who tried to
stop his car and question him.
*Chacón added that tests run on the bodies of López
and Juan Pabón, an officer with the Cicpc who was killed
in the shootout, showed that the two men shot their guns.
Chacón once again lashed out at "some media" that have
tried to make people believe that López was "murdered."
*Secret police Disip officers Sunday captured Juan Guevara,
a suspect in a bomb attack that killed prosecutor Anderson
on November 18, and a cousin of brothers Rolando and Otoniel
Guevara, who were already arrested in connection with the
case.
*The authorities raided a motel in central west Portuguesa
State and found Juan Guevara, newspaper "Última Hora"
reported. Guevara was missing since last Monday, when, before
his wife, Carmen de Guevara, authorities took him out of his
house for questioning.
Police raid at a Hebrew school
*Daniel Snimack, president of the Hebrew community in Caracas,
Monday expressed concern and alarm on a police raid at the
headquarters of the Hebrew school and social club in the Venezuelan
capital city, a move that is reportedly related to investigations
in connection with prosecutor Anderson's murder.
*Even though Snimack admitted that some judiciary procedures
are necessary, he claimed that authorities could have performed
the search in a different way, as they were entering a building
that is a school and a cultural and community center.
*"More than 1,500 students were at school when the raid started.
It is easy to imagine their and their parents' anguish and
alarm when they were told what was going on."
*According to Snimack, the operation -performed as instructed
by the 34th Crime Control Judge Maikel Moreno- could have
been completed differently "to avoid chaos, alarm and panic."
*Juan Bautista Guevara, who Monday was accused of being the
man who planted a bomb that killed prosecutor Anderson, was
taken to the 34th Crime Control Court on Tuesday for a hearing.
*Police sources have claimed that Juan Bautista Guevara was
found in a motel in central western Portuguesa State, and
that he carried a gun, grenade and U.S. dollars. The authorities
added that Guevara had plans to cross the Venezuelan border
with Colombia.
*He was arrested almost a week after his relatives reported
him missing, and after Attorney General Isaías Rodríguez
said that Juan Guevara was held by prosecutors for questioning
in connection with the murder of prosecutor Anderson.
*The 34th Crime Control Judge, Maikel Moreno, launched an
investigation against brothers Otoniel and Rolando Guevara
for their alleged involvement in a bomb attack against prosecutor
Anderson, under charges of terrorism, even though such a crime
is not set forth under the Venezuelan legislation.
*Moreno ratified that the Guevara brothers are under arrest
at the headquarters of the secret police (Disip) in Caracas.
Prosecutors Turcy Simancas and Sonia Buznego indicted them
for murder and conspiracy for planning the attack against
Anderson.
*A car allegedly used to stage a bomb attack against prosecutor
Anderson was found on Tuesday in downtown Caracas, and police
corps cordoned off the area and blocked automobile traffic
around the place.
*Antonio Pujol, director of the Police Department of the
Libertador Municipality of Caracas, said the car may hold
explosive material, and he called in special explosive taskforces
from the secret police Disip and the Cicpc.
*Pujol indicated that people residing in the area reported
that the vehicle was parked in the same place since Saturday
night. The Police Department of the Libertador Municipality
of Caracas verified that the vehicle was wanted in connection
with Anderson's case.
Tortures
*Juan Bautista Guevara told his relatives that he was tortured
and given injections to prevent hematomas from appearing on
his body.
*Guevara also told his wife, Carmen Medina, that he was held
-for over a week- in a place where he could hear other people
screaming, thus he assumed that other people were held there.
*Guevara was arrested by men who claimed to be police officers
on November 20. A few hours later, Attorney General Isaías
Rodríguez admitted that Guevara was detained for questioning.
But authorities said that Guevara was found a week later in
a motel in central western Portuguesa State.
*Given a number of mistakes and abuses reportedly committed
during an investigation on the murder of the fourth national
environment prosecutor Anderson, the Attorney General's Office
has supposedly decided to remove the officers of the Homicide
Department of the Cicpc from the case, and assign the inquiries
to another security body, and that is the reason why the investigation
is frozen, police sources claimed.
*The sources added that rivalries between police officers
resulted in abuses such as an unsuccessful search at the Hebrew
Club in Caracas, and the detention and transfer of Haydée
Castillo de López and Antonio López, the elderly
parents of lawyer Antonio López Castillo, who was killed
in a shootout with police corps and was later accused of participating
in a bomb attack that killed Anderson.
*Some other sources have questioned the correctness of the
police operation where lawyer López was killed, as well
as Cicpc inspector Luis Alberto Pabón.
*The sources claimed that some policemen do not want to continue
working in a joint police taskforce as they find it abnormal
the fact that the relevant inspections and planimetry tests
at the places where suspects were killed were not timely conducted.
They said that even though such tests are vital for the investigation,
they were not performed.
*In addition, the sources indicated that the prosecutors
heading the probe were not advised of a raid into the Hebrew
Club in Caracas, where more than 1,000 children were cleared
out.
*Sources at the Attorney General's Office explained that
prosecutors Yoraco Bauza and Gilberto Landaeta, who are in
charge of the enquiry, decided to reshuffle the police taskforce
investigating the attack. They also decided to reassign the
tasks pending among the members of a joint police taskforce
that was originally created to deal with Anderson's case.
02:57 PM. HEAVY RAINS. Venezuelan Executive Vice-President Elias Jaua reported that the government is designing plans to support farmers, cattlemen and peasants of the state of Mérida who have been hit by heavy rains that have caused crop losses.