Conditional release was granted this Monday to Rafael Ramírez, former mayor of Maracaibo, detained in October 2024 and under house arrest since August of last year.
In addition, the former director general of Citizen Security of Maracaibo, David Barroso, was also released with restrictions, also detained in October 2024 and under house arrest since last August.
Both will have to appear in court every 30 days and are prohibited from leaving the country, according to Ramírez’s team, which says it does not yet know the details of the sentence.
“After 567 days, we have returned from the dark side, a complicated, difficult side,” Ramírez told the press outside the Maracaibo Palace of Justice, from where he thanked God, his family and all those who have supported him.
However, he assured that there is “nothing to celebrate” because there are still “many political prisoners” in the country, for whose freedom he asked to continue fighting.
“We have to continue believing that this Venezuela is going to change, that this Venezuela is close to achieving the objectives that have to do with the political change that this country needs,” he expressed.
In his opinion, the nation “needs to reconcile” and for that he sees it as essential “a process of free elections that allow everyone” to vote “for those who are the true representatives of the people.”
After a year and a half in detention and three days of trial hearings, he added: “We came out whole, we came out determined, we came out happy, we came out convinced that change is coming.”
Ramírez and Barroso were arrested when Venezuela was going through a political crisis unleashed after the presidential elections of July 2024, in which Nicolás Maduro, now detained in the United States, was proclaimed the winner by the electoral body, related to Chavismo, based on results that it did not publish in a disaggregated manner.
The Public Ministry had accused Ramírez of “serious irregular acts” related to corruption.
The Minister of the Interior, Diosdado Cabello, then said that the Maracaibo Mayor’s Office gave to “far-right political parties” – as the ruling party usually refers to the majority opposition – resources obtained through the collection of taxes and the charging of urban cleaning services.
The Government reported this Monday that Justice last week granted “alternative measures” to the deprivation of liberty for 51 detained people, amid complaints about the slowdown of the amnesty process and at the request of the Program for Coexistence and Peace, created by the president in charge, Delcy Rodríguez.
According to an official statement, the measures were requested for people “prosecuted or convicted” for crimes related to “attacks against democratic institutions”, without specifying the identities of the supposed beneficiaries or what those measures were.
The amnesty approved in February by Parliament excludes cases related to military operations and other crimes, such as corruption, homicide and human rights violations. EFE
