MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Venezuelan opposition leader Machado under criminal investigation

Machado is believed to have committed treason for supporting a US legal initiative imposing further sanctions on the Chavista regime

Venezuelan Prosecutor's Office Friday launched a probe into disenfranchised opposition leader María Corina Machado's support to a bill passed by the US House of Representatives contrary to the South American country's interests, it was announced in Caracas. In a statement, the initiative in Washington was described as a legal absurdity sponsoring criminal acts against the Venezuelan people by enlarging “the catalog of illegal sanctions.” The measure also seeks to stain the name of our Liberator Simón Bolívar and violate Venezuela's Constitution as well as its laws and sovereignty.

“Attending to those facts where sectors of the extreme right led by María Corina Machado and others, have manifested their support to the same: [the Prosecutor's Office] has decided to initiate an investigation against the aforementioned defendant to be charged, for her promotion and support to said legal eyesore,” the document read.

Machado's statements “seriously involve her and constitute the commission of the crimes of treason to the homeland, established in article 128 of the Penal Code,” the Prosecutor's Office also noted, while adding that the former Congresswoman would have committed a conspiracy with foreign countries as provided for in Article 132 of the Penal Code in addition to association to commit crimes, established in article 37 of the Law against Organized Crime.

The Public Prosecutor's Office also placed itself as guarantor of the faithful tradition of freedom, peace, independence, and sovereignty that characterizes the Republic and pledged to wage a fight “against any person, group or national or international entity that with its actions threatens the stability of the country.”

Earlier this week, Venezuela's National Assembly (Parliament) unanimously approved the Simón Bolívar Liberator Organic Law bill against the blockade consisting of 18 articles inspired by the legacy of patriotic and anti-imperialist dignity of Simón Bolívar, it was explained. The norm calls for sanctions against natural and legal persons who “manage, request, or assist in any way” these foreign powers in applying sanctions, including the lifelong disenfranchisement of those who “assist and ally with foreign agents to impose unilateral coercive measures on the Venezuelan people,” among other alternatives. It also makes this collaboration an aggravating circumstance in the crime of treason.

Last Wednesday, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro repudiated “the criminal attempt to put the name of Bolívar to a law of war, dirty and criminal against Venezuela, in the Parliament of the United States” and called on all the Venezuelan people to support the fight against what he described as a Garbage Law.