An autopsy confirmed the suicide of a detainee for corruption in Venezuela, announced the attorney general Tarek William Saab before questions from the family and human rights organizations to the official version.
“The autopsy resulted” in Leoner Azuaje Urrea, 39, one of the 61 detainees in anti-corruption operations in the Caribbean country in recent weeks, “died of mechanical asphyxiation,” Saab posted on Twitter.
“Experts made by the Criminal Unit of the Public Ministry” determined that Azuaje Urrea used “sheets to hang himself” in his place of confinement at the headquarters of the intelligence service in Caracas, added the prosecutor, according to the AFP news agency.
Azuaje was brought before a court on Wednesday on accusations of corruption at the state-owned Cartones de Venezuela, in illegal operations that began last month.
“Several letters addressed to his family were also found, mentioning the decision he had made to make an attempt on his life,” added Saab, who assured that an interview with a psychologist treating the former official corroborated the existence of “disorders and signs of attack of anxiety” in the detainee.
Azuaje’s wife, Claudia Pimentel, asked local authorities and the governments of Peru and Spain for “protection” for her family.
“I demand the protection of the Prosecutor’s Office (…) and I demand the protection of the Peruvian government, because I am Peruvian without dual nationality, my daughters are also, and I also demand the protection of the Spanish embassy for my sister-in-law and my mother-in-law” , of dual Venezuelan-Spanish nationality, said the woman in a video broadcast on social networks.
One of the main human rights organizations in Venezuela, Provea, called on Thursday for an “independent investigation.”
At least 12 prisoners for corruption and for political crimes such as conspiracy have died in prison in the last decade, some of them amid allegations of torture.
Provea stated that “the alleged ‘suicide’ of Leoner Azuaje Urrea demonstrates that in Venezuela prison conditions persist that do not guarantee the integrity and life of persons in State custody.”
The police operations launched the previous month have been centered around the state oil company Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), the heart of the battered Venezuelan economy.
Oil Minister Tareck El Aissami resigned amid the scandal.
According to a Saab balance, during the investigations there have been 61 arrests and 172 raids.
Analysts have considered these operations as “a political purge” of the ruling Chavismo, which the prosecutor denies.
Source: Ambito
