Law & Justice

On Monday, a Miami jury found Franklin Durán, the co-owner of the private Venezuelan motor oil manufacturer VENECO, guilty of acting as an unregistered agent of the Venezuelan government in the United States.

Venezuelan authorities detained six suspects in the case of the October 1st murder of Julio Soto, the student government president at the University of Zulia, according to Venezuelan Attorney General Luisa Ortega Díaz.

On Wednesday, the Venezuelan government launched an investigation of newspaper editor Rafael Poleo after Poleo made televised declarations that sectors of the government considered to be a call to assassinate of President Hugo Chávez.

This Monday the Metropolitan Police of Caracas (PM) discovered and dismantled a secret bullet factory in an important step in the struggle against organized crime, according to the Minister for the Interior, Tarek El Aissami.

Venezuelan police officer Sofia Aguilar denounced the Vatican Tuesday for granting asylum to Nixon Moreno, the leader of a violent opposition student group called March 13th Movement (M13) that waged violent protests in 2006, during which Aguilar was assaulted and nearly raped, and Aguilar's police partner was left in a coma.

Investigators of the murder of Julio Soto, the student government president at the University of Zulia, have uncovered evidence linking the crime to Soto's illicit selling of government-subsidized student bus tickets and his affiliations with competing political parties within the Venezuelan opposition.

On Thursday, the Venezuelan government launched an investigation into the murder of Julio Soto, the president of the student government at the University of Zulia, and asked that the crime not be used as a pretext for violent destabilization as the November regional and local elections approach.

The Venezuelan government expelled two employees of the U.S-based NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW), Americas Director José Miguel Vivanco and Americas Deputy Director Daniel Wilkinson, after the two presented a report that harshly criticized the "government's willful disregard" for fundamental rights.

Venezuela's Supreme Court issued a series of decisions Tuesday and Wednesday that validated the Comptroller General's ruling to temporarily disqualify nearly 300 opposition and pro-Chavez Venezuelans accused of corruption from holding public office.

Venezuelans on both sides of the country’s political divide await with bated breath an imminent decision of the Supreme Court on the constitutionality of the Comptroller General’s disqualification of candidates for public office, due to accusations of corruption.