The Venezuelan businessman Ricardo Alberto Albacete Vidal, linked to opposition leader María Corina Machado, was arrested for an alleged attempt to attack the electricity service and “destabilize” the presidential elections of July 28, as announced this Friday by the Attorney General, Tarek William Saab.
According to the criteria of
Machado’s party, Vente Venezuela, He denounced the arrest of Albacete Vidal, who was accused of sabotage of the electrical system along with another man, as “political persecution”The other person arrested is Aldo Roso Vargas, captured on Wednesday in Caracas.
What is Ricardo Albacete accused of?
Abacete Vidal, owner of a metalworking company in the state of Táchira (southwest, bordering Colombia), had lodged Machado two weeks ago in one of his properties in the city of San Cristóbalwhere the leader was on an electoral tour.
According to the prosecutor, the two detainees had a plan of “actions against the electrical system.” “They were trying to destabilize the presidential elections,” he asserted.
Former congressman and human rights defender Walter Márquez said that Albacete Vidal was arrested in Caracas, where he had traveled to repair a vehicle for the opposition’s electoral campaign.
“They raided his home in Palmira, Guasimos municipality, taking workers as detainees”Márquez denounced in a press conference this Friday.
The prosecutor said that during the raids it was discovered that the two detainees “had in their possession a large quantity of strategic material” that had been “stolen” from the state electricity company Corpoelec. “They are after a company located in Táchira, which functioned as a collection center for strategic material stolen from the national electrical system,” said the official.
“When carrying out the raids, it was possible to verify that these citizens had in their possession a large amount of strategic material, “belonging to (state-owned company) Corpoelec. All these elements are valued at around 150,000 dollars (…) Everything found there is property of the Venezuelan State and there is no reason for them to be in a warehouse,” he added.
The Venezuelan government claims that the opposition plans to destabilize the elections and attempt to assassinate President Nicolás Maduroin power since 2013 and seeking a third term until 2031.
Machado, winner of the opposition primaries, was politically disqualified, but has continued campaigning throughout the country to promote the candidacy of former ambassador Edmundo González Urrutia, who replaced her.
Maduro on Tuesday called for 30 years in prison for those who attack the electricity system. The prosecutor said the sentences could range from 20 to 25 years in prison.
Until mid-June, Machado had denounced the arrest of 10 activists from his party. Authorities have also ordered the arrest of his right-hand woman, Magalli Meda, and five other collaborators who are taking refuge in the Argentine embassy in Caracas.
In addition, Several independent workers who provided services to the opposition, such as boatmen, motorcyclists, sound technicians and drivers, suffered temporary detentions, prohibition of sailing or blocking of work instruments, under the government’s argument of lack of documentation or records.
Edmundo González Urrutia, in fact, reported on Monday that the National Integrated Service of Customs and Tax Administration (Seniat) closed, for 14 business days (19 calendar days), the restaurant that served him the day before, when he was returning from a campaign event in the west of the country.
Activists call for the liberation of Albacete
The La Causa R party described the arrest as an “unacceptable arbitrary act” for which it held the president responsible. and candidate for re-election in the presidential elections on July 28, Nicolás Maduro.
“Ricardo Albacete has not committed any crime. We demand his immediate release,” The anti-Chavez formation expressed in X, where it shared a publication by the lawyer Omar Mora Tosta, in which it points out that the businessman was “persecuted for sheltering Machado in his home” in Táchira and “arbitrarily detained this afternoon in Caracas.”
For its part, The NGO Un Mundo Sin Mordaza condemned “the raid on one of the houses and industrial warehouses” of the businessman, and demanded that the State “stop the persecutions, arrests and arbitrary raids.” from the homes of citizens who think differently.”
He also asked “a thorough, impartial and transparent investigation into the raid on the home where he stayed” Machado, and urged the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), among other international organizations, to “take note of the matter and condemn the aforementioned attacks.”
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