MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Buenos Aires court orders arrest of Maduro, Cabello, and other Chavista leaders

Interpol will now have to decide whether to issue a red alert against the Bolivarian leader

An Argentine court ordered Monday the arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello for their systematic plan to detain, kidnap, and torture people, which escalated after the controversial July 28 elections which the incumbent leader claims to have won despite producing no tangible evidence attesting to that. The measure also reaches over 30 Chavista leaders.

A Buenos Aires Federal Court invoked the principle of universal jurisdiction when human rights crimes are involved, regardless of where they were committed, the nationality of the perpetrators and the victims. International arrest warrants are also to be issued to Interpol, which might result in a red alert declared against all of the suspects.

“The arrest warrants, for extradition purposes, will serve so that all those nations that for ideological or economic reasons still maintain ambivalent positions on what is happening in Venezuela, can no longer ignore the serious crimes against humanity that the government headed by Nicolás Maduro Moros perpetrates in a systematic manner to generate terror in the civilian population and thus perpetuate itself in power,” lawyer Tomás Farini Duggan was quoted as saying. He is one of the plaintiffs alongside Buenos Aires City Security Minister Waldo Wolff.

The solicitor is the legal representative of the Argentine Forum for Democracy in the Region (FADER), which is chaired by Wolff, and supported by the International Foundation for Liberty, led by Peruvian Nobel Prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa, who also joined the claim.

Justices Mariano Llorens, Pablo Bertuzzi, and Leopoldo Bruglia came up with Monday's ruling after hearing Venezuelan refugees in Argentina describe the torments and tortures to which they had been subjected under the Bolivarian regime.

“It was proven that there exists in Venezuela a systematic plan of repression, forced disappearance of people, torture, homicides and persecution against a portion of the civilian population, developed -at least- from 2014 to the present,” the court found.

“We observe that the testimonies eloquently show the experiences suffered by the victims -which seem to exhibit a common pattern in the state actions-, and are reflected in the different reports of international organizations that specifically expose the controversial characteristics of the Venezuelan rule of law, the persecution -kidnappings, tortures, murders- of the civilian population and the disinterest in complying with democratic rules,” the court also said.

“These connotations show that, at this stage of the process, the collection of evidence is sufficient for the judge of first instance to order, without further delay, the summoning of Nicolás Maduro Moros and Diosdado Cabello to testify,” the upper court went on while ordering Judge Sebastián Ramos, who is handling the case, “to proceed in the same way about the structures of the intervening command organizations that were identified or those others that remain to be identified” and keep receiving “testimonial statements from those victims who have presented themselves to the court.”