The judge of the National Court Ismael Moreno has rejected the complaint filed against the former president of the Government José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero for alleged crimes against humanity and torture in Venezuela, ensuring that the writing is based “solely and exclusively on journalistic information and press clippings.”
The head of the Central Court of Instruction Number 2 assures in an order that there is no “objective data that links” Zapatero “with the facts reported by the complainants, nor any hint of his knowledge of them.” Furthermore, the magistrate says that he misses “that among the statements made by the complainants, no element or principle of evidence is offered that reasonably supports their verisimilitude, with the complainants limiting themselves to affirming their existence without any objective support.”
In line with what was pointed out by the Prosecutor’s Office, the judge rules out admitting to processing the complaint that was filed by people “who consider themselves citizens persecuted by the leaders” of Venezuela. In the same, the plaintiffs They highlighted Zapatero’s closeness to the Nicolás Maduro regime and they pointed out that in the last elections the former president “was one of the few international personalities to whom” the Venezuelan government “authorized entry” into the country as an observer.
These Venezuelan citizens, the judge recalls, also presented a written extension of the aforementioned complaint in which – referring again to “facts based on journalistic information” – they pointed to “suspicious threats issued” by Zapatero “to the president of the Assembly.” Constituent, Julio Borges”.
