Venezuelan Attorney General Requests Supreme Court Opinion on Labeling Voluntad Popular as Terrorist Organization
The Venezuelan Attorney General, Tarek William Saab, filed an appeal on Monday before the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ), to determine whether the Popular Will party (Voluntad Popular) is a criminal organization with terrorist purposes and, consequently, to be dissolved. The appeal requests the interpretation of articles 31 and 32 of the Organic Law against Organized Crime and Financing of Terrorism. The dissolution requested would respond to the provisions of the Law on Political Parties, Public Meetings and Demonstrations, and the Constitutional Law against Hate, for Peaceful Coexistence and Tolerance.
“There are no precedents in the country’s history of a political organization that, due to its inability to gain power through the democratic way of votes, migrates towards national and transnational terrorist violence. And then allies itself with a foreign power to blockade the country, sends mercenaries and steals the nation’s assets abroad for the benefit of its members. The leaders of Voluntad Popular and its henchmen have made aggressions against the Venezuelan people their main business,” said the Saab, listing the terrorist and criminal acts that VP has promoted.
In the appeal for interpretation, the Public Ministry requests to establish the scope of articles 31 and 32 of the Organic Law against Organized Crime and Financing of Terrorism, in order to determine whether or not a political party or organization can be considered an active subject or liable for criminal responsibility in the commission of crimes established in said Law, and therefore subject to the foreseen sanctions.
Likewise, to determine “whether said conduct is liable to generate, for reasons of fact and of stated law, responsibility in criminal, civil or administrative matters for the political party or organization Voluntad Popular.”
Promotion of terrorist acts
Saab recalled that said party was created in 2009 by Leopoldo LĂłpez.
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In making an account of the terrorist practices of this political organization, he mentioned:
- The participation of its leaders in the coup d’Ă©tat against President Hugo Chávez in April 2002.
- In April 2013, after the election of Nicolás Maduro as president of the republic, they promoted violent street protests.
- Then, in 2014, after the proposal of La Salida signed by Leopoldo LĂłpez, MarĂa Corina Machado and Antonio Ledezma promoted “guarimbas” in the country that left the balance of 43 deceased and more than 400 wounded, as well as terrorist attacks against public facilities.
- Guarimbas of 2017: about which Saab pointed out that “This terrorist practice was repeated in 2017, this time with greater violence and intensity; when dozens of people were burned alive, the best known case being that of the young Orlando Figuera occurred in Altamira. This new attempt to generate a civil war between April and July 2017, lasted around 130 days and caused incalculable damage to the nation and dozens of Venezuelan families mourned, who counted more than 150 deaths and more than a thousand wounded,” said the attorney general.
- In the appeal filed before the Constitutional Chamber, the Public Ministry mentions the self-proclamation of one of its leaders, Juan GuaidĂł, as “interim president” of Venezuela, “availing himself of the support of the United States government,” with the purpose of appropriating the assets of the Republic “for his personal benefit and that of his accomplices.”
In this sense, he alluded to the illegal confiscation of Citgo in the US and Monomeros in Colombia, as well as the appropriation of the money that the Republic has in foreign banks.
“With that money, they financed a mercenary incursion (on May 3) against our territory and seek to buy loyalties to continue trying to lead us, even during the pandemic, to civil war. His latest gestures have been to pressure AT&T to remove Directv from Venezuela and to ask the US to prevent Iranian tankers from arriving in the country to bring gasoline and additives,” added Saab.
Translated by JRE/EF
