SANTIAGO, Chile — Prosecutors in Chile mentioned Friday they plan to formally request that Venezuela extradite two of its residents to face trial for fees associated to the kidnapping and killing of a Venezuelan dissident in Chile earlier this yr, a case that has strained relations between the South American nations.
Prosecutors dominated that the slaying of the activist and former military lieutenant was plotted in Venezuela. If confirmed, the grisly killing on Chilean soil might sign a brand new entrance within the widespread repression by the federal government of President Nicolás Maduro towards the opposition forward of his re-election contest later this yr.
Venezuela has denied involvement.
Chilean prosecutors on Friday publicly implicated Venezuela’s largest prison group, the Aragua Prepare, within the crime. Authorities additionally hinted that they imagine the culprits within the killing of 32-year-old Ronald Ojeda — who had sought asylum in Chile after protesting Maduro’s administration — could have been engaged on behalf of the Venezuelan authorities.
Ojeda’s outspoken politics, prosecutors mentioned, dominated out hypothesis the group killed him over his participation in illicit avenue gang exercise. The Aragua Prepare by no means made a ransom demand. Ojeda was killed simply hours after being kidnapped.
“We’re speaking a few sufferer who has participated in actions towards the Venezuelan authorities,” mentioned Héctor Barros, the prosecutor main the case.
Additional elevating suspicions, Barros mentioned, the disposal of Ojeda’s corpse was chillingly methodical — one thing uncommon for the Aragua Prepare. On March 1, after 10 days of feverish looking, Chilean authorities discovered his physique squeezed right into a suitcase, buried a meter beneath a constructing within the hardscrabble suburbs of Santiago, sprinkled with white lime powder to hasten decomposition and lined with cement.
Chilean police detained a 17-year-old Venezuelan within the nation illegally in relation to the case. Demanding that Venezuela cooperate within the investigation, the Chilean authorities promised to pursue the extradition of the 2 different suspects who had fled to Venezuela. As soon as Venezuela will get the request, the method would transfer to Venezuelan courts, which might decide whether or not the suspects might be extradited earlier than the judiciary makes the ultimate willpower.
But Venezuela has so far didn’t cooperate with Chile’s previous extradition requests in different prison instances.
“The eyes of the world will likely be watching how (Venezuela) acts,” Inside Minister Carolina Tohá informed reporters on Friday. “We’re going to ensure of it.” She mentioned Chile seen the crime “with the utmost gravity.”
Ojeda, a former member of Venezuela’s navy, escaped Venezuelan detention in 2017 and sought refuge in Chile, which granted him asylum final yr. From exile, he continued to voice opposition to Maduro on social media till his disappearance.
Surveillance digital camera footage from the early morning of Feb. 21, the date of Ojeda’s abduction, reveals three males dressed as Chilean police taking him from his condominium and bundling him right into a automobile.
The incident introduced already tense relations between Chile and Venezuela to an inflection level.
Santiago recalled its ambassador in Caracas on Thursday over Ojeda’s kidnapping. Calls grew for the federal government to sever relations with Venezuela after its international minister, Yvan Gill, dismissed the Aragua Prepare jail gang and its attain throughout Latin America as a “fiction created by worldwide media.”
The case comes at a delicate time for Maduro, who’s working for re-election in July. In latest months, his long-running marketing campaign to crush dissent has drawn widespread criticism and strained efforts by the Biden administration to pave the way in which at no cost and honest elections within the nation.
___
Observe AP’s protection of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america
