An outraged Venezuelan government on Friday sought to block an Argentine Web site that published photographs of the corpse of a young legislator stabbed to death last week in a mystery that has convulsed the nation.
In a gruesome and murky case, Robert Serra, 27, a rising star in the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela, and his companion, Maria Herrera, died of multiple knife wounds late at night in his Caracas home.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has accused radical opponents of being behind the murder and promised to reveal details soon, though various other theories have been doing the rounds among a public appalled by the killings.
Photographs of Serra’s naked, mutilated body in a morgue appeared on social media on Friday and were reproduced by Argentine news site Infobae.
The Venezuelan Public Prosecutors’ Office immediately ordered an investigation and Venezuelan Minister of Information Delcy Rodriguez said the site was being blocked in the country.
“For staining the honor of our young parliamentarian Robert Serra and for disrespecting the integrity of his family, the Infobae Web portal has been blocked,” she said on Twitter.
Infobae said Caracas was overreacting.
“We reject the Maduro government’s censure of Infobae,” Web site director Valeria Cavallo said in Buenos Aires. “We’re not going to accept that any government tells us what photos we can publish.”
Rodriguez also urged Twitter to comment on the “barbarous and abominable” publication via its service. A Twitter account where the images first appeared was suspended.
Venezuelan opposition leaders have been quick to condemn the murder and offer condolences, but are equally outraged at the Maduro government for pointing the finger at them.
Stirring passions further, Rodriguez repeated on Friday that the murder had “clear” political purposes.
“We will not allow macabre, internal and external factors led by terrorists impose their violent agenda on our fatherland,” she said.
Serra, a lawyer, was one of the youngest members of the Venezuelan National Assembly and a pugnacious “Chavista,” a supporter of the left-wing political ideology of late Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez.
Local media reports indicate police investigations have been focusing initially on his bodyguards.
The death has put a focus again on violent crime in the country, which has one of the world’s highest homicide rates.
The official murder rate last year was 39 per 100,000 people, though non-government organizations put the figure at nearly twice that for a total of 24,000 deaths.
In a mass of analyses and theories about Serra’s death, Web site Venezuela Analysis rapped foreign media for what it said was a “lack of interest, lack of concern” over him compared with last year’s killing of soap opera actress and former Miss Venezuela Monica Spear.
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