The defense of Edmundo González Urrutia, former presidential candidate for the largest opposition bloc to the dictatorship of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela, delivered a document to the Public Prosecutor’s Office on Wednesday night (4) requesting respect for the presumption of innocence and procedural guarantees that, according to him, were not present in the three summons made by the institution for him to give testimony.
José Vicente Haro, the opponent’s lawyer, told reporters that “the objective was achieved”, as the idea was to “obtain an effective acknowledgment of receipt and formally establish before the MP the reasons why González Urrutia did not appear” after the summons, which led to the issuance of an arrest warrant against him last Monday (2).
The document, delivered by Haro and signed by González, states that the “non-attendance” is not due “in any way to ignorance of the jurisdictional institutionality provided for in the Constitution”, but “to the conviction of the lack of grounds for such a summons”.
“I believe that such a turnout could only contribute to further intensifying social tension, in addition to consolidating a context of incriminating judicialization of politics that we must all reject,” said the opposition leader in the letter.
In recent weeks, according to the text, “public statements have been issued by high-ranking government spokespeople [regime] and other state institutions” that “condemn him in advance and (…) without foundation”.
The former opposition presidential candidate is accused of “usurpation of functions” and “falsification of public documents”, among other crimes, after his coalition released 83.5% of the voting records, collected by witnesses and polling station staff, to support its accusation that there was fraud in the July 28 presidential election, whose official result gave a questionable victory to Nicolás Maduro. (With information from EFE)
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