Maduro and allies sentenced in US to pay more than R$780 million to tortured political prisoner – News

A federal judge in Miami, US, has condemned Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and allies for paying $153 million (more than R$ 780 million) to Carlos Maron, a political prisoner held for 878 days, allegedly tortured by the country’s authorities.

Besides Maduro, Judge Federico A. Moreno condemned the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) and the Cartel de los Soules, members of Venezuela’s civil and military society.

According to Argentine portal Infobay, the group was sentenced for contempt for failing to respond to court requests. All those cited must split the restitution amount established by the judge, which will then be shared among Maron, his wife and children.

To enforce the decision, the Miami court seized the assets of those involved in the process.

According to Infobae, the Venezuelan was in exile in the United States, but decided to return to his country in 2018 when he discovered that his father had been arrested by local authorities for trying to destroy the country’s economic order through a website. .

Maron’s arrest was even debated by the UN Human Rights Council, which concluded that the plaintiff had been arbitrarily detained for running a website that published an illegal market exchange rate between the Venezuelan bolivar and the US dollar.

Exposing this kind of activity is a crime in Venezuela, something Maran says he did not do despite owning the website dolarpro.com. According to him, the domain of the site was later acquired for sale – it is actually currently being negotiated.

In 2010, a presidential decree made it illegal to publish any exchange rate other than the official one. However, opponents believe that this parallel market exchange rate is used by government officials as a means of extorting bribes.