| Submit your comments on this article |
| Caribbean-Latin America |
| 8 Venezuelan Police Officers Await Trial |
| 2004-03-15 |
| I think this trial will be the be the final catalyst for the coming Latin American inferno. I am curious to see whether Cuba ignites along the way. CARACAS, Venezuela -- Police officer Hector Rovain remembers the bullets slamming into his armored water cannon. He remembers praying for his life while fighting back with nothing but water and tear gas. When he started choking on the gas, he opened the truck door, fired his revolver into the air and gasped for air. Rovain was in the middle of a melee that erupted when gunmen opened fire during an opposition march at the presidential palace on April 11, 2002. Nineteen people were killed that day, hundreds were wounded and President Hugo Chavez was ousted briefly from office. Almost two years later, no one has been convicted in the shootings. But Rovain and seven fellow officers from a city police department seen by Chavez as part of the opposition are now being prosecuted on charges of killing two people and wounding 35 others. No trial date has been set, but the case promises to reopen old wounds over unresolved deaths on both sides even as tensions remain high over Chavez’s leadership. In the 2002 police case, the opposition considers the officers heroes who risked their lives to protect peaceful marchers. Chavez supporters see them as assassins who gunned down civilians trying to protect their president. Rovain and the seven others have shared a cell at Caracas police headquarters for 10 months. In December, a court ordered them to stand trial in the deaths of two Chavez sympathizers, Erasmo Sanchez and Rudy Urbano, the attempted murder of a third, and the wounding of 35 other people. Defense attorney Juan Carlos Gutierrez insists there is no evidence against the eight. Ballistics tests couldn’t trace the bullets that killed Sanchez or Urbano to any of the officers’ guns, Gutierrez said. A bullet could only be extracted from one of the 35 who were wounded, and it couldn’t traced to the officers’ weapons, either. Federal prosecutor Danilo Anderson acknowledged in an interview that there is no conclusive ballistics evidence. His case is based on a Venezuelan law that allows a group of people to be prosecuted for participating in an attack, even if it can’t be determined who caused deaths or injuries. Anderson said the prosecution has videotape and photographs of the eight firing the same type of bullets -- 5.56-caliber -- that killed Sanchez and Urbano and wounded the 35. "If it’s presumed that a group of people participated in someone’s death or injury, but we don’t know exactly who caused the death, then we accuse them all," Anderson said. If convicted, the officers likely would get less than the 30-year maximum sentence for homicide, he added. Chavez supporters claim the Caracas police department, which is controlled by opposition Mayor Alfredo Pena, was part of a conspiracy to provoke bloodshed and justify the president’s ouster. Those who marched against the president remember things differently. They say pro-Chavez gunmen and National Guard troops ambushed their march, and the police did all they could to stay alive while keeping the two sides apart. Opposition leaders were infuriated when a judge absolved four Chavez supporters who allegedly were caught on film shooting from a bridge at the march. Federal police are still searching for four other Chavez sympathizers accused of firing guns that day. |
| Posted by:Super Hose |