Venezuela on Monday announced a probe into torture claims by 252 migrants the US had sent to a notorious Salvadoran prison, where they said they were beaten, sexually abused and fed rotten food.
Attorney General Tarek William Saab presented photographs and testimonies at a news conference in Caracas of some of the men, who said they had feared not making it out alive.
Several had bruises on their bodies, marks of being shot with rubber bullets, and one had a split lip.
Photo: Reuters
Andry Hernandez Romero, a 32-year-old beautician among those sent to the notorious CECOT prison as part of US President Donald Trump’s migrant crackdown, said he barely survived the ordeal.
“We were going through torture, physical aggressions, psychological aggressions,” he said in a video presented by Saab. “I was sexually abused.”
Saab said the prosecutor’s office was interviewing the returned migrants.
Many spoke of being held in “inhuman cells,” deprived of sunlight and ventilation, and given rotten food and unsafe drinking water.
The men had no access to lawyers or their relatives, and the last time many of them were seen was when Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s government issued photographs of them arriving at the prison shackled and with their heads shorn.
By Monday afternoon, the migrants had not yet been reunited with their families.
Officials said they were undergoing medical exams, being issued with new Venezuelan ID cards and interviewed by the prosecutor’s office.
Mercedes Yamarte, 46, said that she was preparing a welcome party for her 29-year-old son, Mervin, one of the men released from the prison Bukele built as part of his mass anti-gang crackdown.
She had put up balloons, banners and prepared food at their home in a poor neighborhood of Maracaibo in northern Venezuela, but had no idea when to expect him.
At lunchtime on Monday, she received a telephone call and heard the words: “Mom, it’s Mervin.”
“I hadn’t heard my son’s voice in four months and seven days, listening to him was a joy, a joy I cannot describe,” she said.
The men were accused in the US of being gang members and flown in March to El Salvador, after Trump invoked rarely used wartime laws to deport the men without court hearings.
Their treatment elicited an international outcry.
Saab said the Venezuelan investigation would target Bukele and other Salvadoran officials for alleged crimes against humanity, and he urged the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the UN Human Rights Council to act.
The men were freed on Friday last week and flown back home in what the Trump administration said was an exchange for 10 Americans or US residents and dozens of “political prisoners” held in Venezuela.
Venezueland President Nicolas Maduro on his TV show on Monday claimed that Bukele had tried “last minute” to prevent the migrants from leaving.
“You could not stop the first plane, but for the second plane he put some car on the runway ... to provoke either an accident or prevent them from leaving,” he said.
Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado labeled the process as an “exchange of prisoners of war” during a television interview.
Venezuela itself faces an investigation by the ICC in The Hague, Netherlands, over similar allegations of torturing prisoners and denying them access to legal representation.
Hundreds of people are held for political reasons in Venezuela, according to rights group Foro Penal.
About 2,400 people were arrested, 28 killed and 200 injured in a crackdown on protests that broke out in July last year after Maduro claimed victory in elections he is widely accused of having stolen.
IDENTITY: A sex extortion scandal involving Thai monks has deeply shaken public trust in the clergy, with 11 monks implicated in financial misconduct Reverence for the saffron-robed Buddhist monkhood is deeply woven into Thai society, but a sex extortion scandal has besmirched the clergy and left the devout questioning their faith. Thai police this week arrested a woman accused of bedding at least 11 monks in breach of their vows of celibacy, before blackmailing them with thousands of secretly taken photos of their trysts. The monks are said to have paid nearly US$12 million, funneled out of their monasteries, funded by donations from laypeople hoping to increase their merit and prospects for reincarnation. The scandal provoked outrage over hypocrisy in the monkhood, concern that their status
The United States Federal Communications Commission said on Wednesday it plans to adopt rules to bar companies from connecting undersea submarine communication cables to the US that include Chinese technology or equipment. “We have seen submarine cable infrastructure threatened in recent years by foreign adversaries, like China,” FCC Chair Brendan Carr said in a statement. “We are therefore taking action here to guard our submarine cables against foreign adversary ownership, and access as well as cyber and physical threats.” The United States has for years expressed concerns about China’s role in handling network traffic and the potential for espionage. The U.S. has
A disillusioned Japanese electorate feeling the economic pinch goes to the polls today, as a right-wing party promoting a “Japanese first” agenda gains popularity, with fears over foreigners becoming a major election issue. Birthed on YouTube during the COVID-19 pandemic, spreading conspiracy theories about vaccinations and a cabal of global elites, the Sanseito Party has widened its appeal ahead of today’s upper house vote — railing against immigration and dragging rhetoric that was once confined to Japan’s political fringes into the mainstream. Polls show the party might only secure 10 to 15 of the 125 seats up for grabs, but it is
The US Department of Education on Tuesday said it opened a foreign funding investigation into the University of Michigan (UM) while alleging it found “inaccurate and incomplete disclosures” in a review of the university’s foreign reports, after two Chinese scientists linked to the school were separately charged with smuggling biological materials into the US. As part of the investigation, the department asked the university to share, within 30 days, tax records related to foreign funding, a list of foreign gifts, grants and contracts with any foreign source, and other documents, the department said in a statement and in a letter to
RSS