"They were about to throw me out of the armored car"
Students arrested in Bolívar state (south) declared in court about ill-treatment suffered at the hands of the National Guard
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The National Guard has been singled out as major human rights abuser (Handout photo)
JUAN FRANCISCO ALONSO | EL UNIVERSAL
Saturday April 05, 2014 12:00 AM
The news that a group of young students arrested on March 17 by the National Guard in Puerto Ordaz (Bolívar state) was allegedly force-fed foul-smelling substances as they were held inside armored riot control vehicles, has caused a huge stir in the public opinion and set the alarm bells ringing in the judiciary.
This is suggested in extracts from the case records drawn up by the preliminary proceedings court during the hearing for arraignment of the six students, one of them an underage girl. They were all charged with fomenting unrest. El Universal had access to those records.
During the hearing, prosecutors Jairo Chacón and Eurenis López requested the judge, Eduardo Fernández, to order endoscopy procedures be performed on the detainees to assess the allegations.
At the face-to-face interview in the presence of the judge, each was asked whether they were force-fed any "excrementitious substance" by their incarcerators.
Four of them denied it, but a young man identified as Joaquín Pérez Valdez, a student at Puerto Ordaz-based Andrés Bello Catholic University (UCAB), said: "They fed me rotten food; it was foul-smelling." The underage girl (whose name was omitted) declared that an officer holding a can "containing a brownish substance" said to her, ‘Since you are so fancy, try some sardine.' "He tried to force it down my mouth, but it came down my nose (...). I tried to spit out as much of it as I could (...). It smelled like sardine at first, but after I spitted it out it smelled like rotten garbage", she stated.
This is suggested in extracts from the case records drawn up by the preliminary proceedings court during the hearing for arraignment of the six students, one of them an underage girl. They were all charged with fomenting unrest. El Universal had access to those records.
During the hearing, prosecutors Jairo Chacón and Eurenis López requested the judge, Eduardo Fernández, to order endoscopy procedures be performed on the detainees to assess the allegations.
At the face-to-face interview in the presence of the judge, each was asked whether they were force-fed any "excrementitious substance" by their incarcerators.
Four of them denied it, but a young man identified as Joaquín Pérez Valdez, a student at Puerto Ordaz-based Andrés Bello Catholic University (UCAB), said: "They fed me rotten food; it was foul-smelling." The underage girl (whose name was omitted) declared that an officer holding a can "containing a brownish substance" said to her, ‘Since you are so fancy, try some sardine.' "He tried to force it down my mouth, but it came down my nose (...). I tried to spit out as much of it as I could (...). It smelled like sardine at first, but after I spitted it out it smelled like rotten garbage", she stated.
