The Venezuelan Justice put an end this Thursday to the judicial process against the journalist and human rights defender Carlos Julio Rojasafter the First Trial Court with jurisdiction in Terrorism issued an acquittal ruling that returned his full freedom and annulled the restrictions that still weighed on him.
The failure reported by the National Union of Press Workers (SNTP)stressed that “the decision returns him full freedom and puts an end to a judicial process that lasted more than two years and five months.”
Rojas was arrested on April 15, 2024 and remained deprived of liberty for almost 21 months, until his release on January 14, 2026. Although he was released from prison, the process remained open under precautionary measures in which he had to appear in court every 30 days and was prohibited from leaving the country.
The case included charges of association and instigation to commit a crime, terrorism, conspiracy and attempted assassination. With the acquittal ruling, these precautionary measures are lifted and the file is closed.
During the hearing held this Thursday, in which private lawyers Ana Leonora Costa and Alonso Medina Roa were sworn in, prosecutor Carlos Alcalá acknowledged, according to reports on the development of the process, that there was no evidence to support a conviction against Rojas.
The 2024 arrest also represented the fifth that the journalist faced. He had previously been arrested in 2015, 2017, 2018 and 2020, according to the record released by the SNTP.
SNTP demands full freedom and an end to proceedings against journalists.
The Rojas case had remained among the judicial proceedings that continued to be opened against journalists who had already recovered physical freedom. At the beginning of October, the SNTP had precisely demanded the closure of these cases and the lifting of the precautionary measures that still affected some released communicators.
After learning of the decision, the union reiterated its demand for the end of judicial proceedings against press workers and linked the closure of the case to the need to guarantee the exercise of freedom of expression.
“We continue to demand an end to the judicialization of journalists and press workers, and that no one be criminalized again for exercising their freedom of expression,” said the SNTP.
