Aryenis Torrealba and Alfredo Chirinos had all the merits to work in the oil industry. They were young and professionals from the area with a few years of experience in Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), but they had an additional factor, and that is that they were Chavistas, militants of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela and committed to the revolution.
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They believed in the legacy of Hugo Chávez and in the defense of the industry, associated with unions with leftist ideologies. Even, Chirinos, when he was barely a teenager, took to the streets to defend Chávez during the 2002 coup.
Both worked in the management of the main Venezuelan industry, there they met and became romantically linked. Since 2018, they began to denounce corruption and opposed orders to let export ships sail without PDVSA receiving payments. They claimed that “briefcase companies intended to take the oil by orders of hierarchs.”
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It is striking that the embezzlement of PDVSA, known a few days ago, occurred under the format of delivering ships that were not paid to the industry but to Chavismo officials and even under the method of payment with cryptoactives, which suggests that the complaints of young people were true and that they are also not new.
According to the ‘aryenisyalfredoinocentes’ website, this began to bother managers, as the complaints were taken to the Prosecutor’s Office, although without answers.
In 2020, when Tareck El-Aissami He was appointed as Minister of Petroleum and Nicolás Maduro himself ordered the restructuring of the company, one of the first measures was to imprison Torrealba and Chirinos, who were transferred to the headquarters of the Directorate of Military Counterintelligence (Dgcim)accused of disclosing, withholding or supplying information, according to a tweet from the Attorney General of the Republic, Tarek William Saab, dated February 5, 2021. The sentence was five years in prison.
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#CONDEMNED this #4Feb FORMER MANAGERS OF #PDVSA ARYENIS TORREALBA AND ALFREDO CHIRINOS to 5 years in prison for the crime of disclosure, reserve or provision of information… 7 Oral and Public Trial hearings were held where 21 BODIES OF #PROOF TESTIMONIAL pic.twitter.com/BLclHNaOH2
—Tarek William Saab (@TarekWiliamSaab) February 5, 2021
A twist in the case
Friends, co-workers and relatives launched a battle in defense of the young people, who denounced torture in the dungeons of the Dgcim. Suffocation, beatings and psychological pressure are among the complaints.
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The portal created to defend the former employees ensures that Chirinos fainted during one of the interrogations due to beatings. Justice accused them of “leaking information” and “being CIA agents”. They even showed the young man a false visa, in order for him to plead guilty.
The woman was locked in a room with the air conditioning at maximum and plenty of light, since then she has suffered panic attacks.
On April 1, 2023, Torrealba and Chirinos were released in the midst of the operation that the government has undertaken for the embezzlement of 3,000 million dollars to PDVSA and that there are already 44 detainees, according to the prosecutor.
Now these two young people, shouting “popular victory”, a famous Chavista slogan, demand that their names be cleared of the accusations they consider false.
Full freedom was granted by the Fifteenth Court of First Instance in Function of Execution of the Criminal Judicial Circuit of the Metropolitan Area of Caracas. Declaring the extinction of criminal liability.
The path was not easy for both of them. In addition to the torture and pressure to which they were subjected, state officials stressed that they were spies for the United States.
According to the website dedicated to the defense of both, on Friday, February 28, 2020, Torrealba and Chirinos were called to an interview at their jobs with Officials from the Loss Prevention and Control Management who arrived accompanied by Officials from the DGCIM.
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After the meeting they were removed from the headquarters and taken to another place to continue with the investigation, from that moment on they were completely incommunicado.
“Her family was not informed by any official entity, they found out from the calls from her coworkers at 7 pm because they did not communicate. This is the first act in violation of due process,” the website reads.
Through networks, the former employees thanked their colleagues and family members, who were at all times defending them and even protesting outside PDVSA.
ANA MARIA RODRIGUEZ BRAZON
WEATHER CORRESPONDENT
CARACAS
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