Venezuela oppn leader jailed for over 13 years

(MENAFN- The Peninsula)

Caracas: Activists planned new protests in Venezuela yesterday after jailed opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez (pictured) was sentenced to over 13 years in prison for inciting violence during deadly anti-government protests in 2014.

After the court decision against the popular US-trained economist the opposition called for “peaceful” protests. “We call for protests to take place in a peaceful democratic and constitutional way” said Jesus Torrealba executive secretary of the opposition coalition Democratic Unity Roundtable.

Lopez will serve his time at the Ramo Verde military prison where he has been held since February 2014. Judge Susana Barreiros found Lopez guilty of “damage and arson public incitement and conspiracy” the attorney general’s office said.

He was jailed for 13 years nine months and seven days defensc lawyer Roberto Marrero said.

The opposition rejected the ruling proclaimed Lopez’s innocence and called the sentencing decision a political not a judicial one.

Another Lopez attorney Juan Carlos Gutierrez said the trial was plagued with irregularities reflecting the “lack of independence” of the Venezuelan judicial system.

Lilian Tintori Lopez’s wife with whom he has two children urged her husband’s supporters to gather in a square in eastern Caracas to repudiate the ruling. “Today it has been confirmed once again that we live in an undemocratic corrupt and inefficient regime. After this unjust sentence we will continue to fight” she told dozens of angry supporters.

The sentence was also condemned by the European Commission former Colombian president Andres Pastrana and Human Rights Watch Americas director Jose Miguel Vivanco.

The trial of Lopez and four students “have failed to provide the defendants with adequate guarantees of transparency and due legal process” the European Commission said in a statement.

“The EU hopes that the avenues available for redress will allow to review these harsh verdicts in a fair and transparent manner.”

It noted that local security forces prevented diplomats and other independent observers from attending the end of the trial even though the judge had granted authorisation.

Scores of members of Lopez’s center-right party held a vigil in the Caracas neighbourhood of Chacao. Several women burst into tears upon hearing the verdict.

Reports quickly surfaced on social media of heavy pot-banging — a popular sign of anger — in downtown Caracas in opposition to the ruling. Supporters of Lopez 44 said one of their activists had died of a heart attack during a scuffle with pro-government supporters — a claim that could not be independently verified. The police and national guard later intervened to keep the two groups apart.

True to his provocative style Lopez spoke out during the closed-door hearing to which the press had no access launching a challenge against the judge according to members of Lopez’s Popular Will party.

“If the sentence condemns me you will be more afraid to read it than I will be to hear it because you know that I’m innocent” Lopez defiantly told the judge according to David Smolansky a Caracas neighbourhood mayor who was at the hearing.

Fighting broke out between supporters of Lopez and pro-government demonstrators outside the courthouse. Wielding sticks and plastic bottles red-shirted supporters of socialist President Nicolas Maduro’s government descended on a group of Lopez’s followers who had been waiting since the early hours of the morning for the final phase of his trial.

The charges against Lopez are linked to protests against the Maduro administration in which 43 people died and some 3000 were wounded between January and May 2014. AFP