His lawyer, José Vicente Haro, filed a letter with the Prosecutor’s Office explaining González Urrutia’s failure to summon the summonses, due to the defenselessness and violations of due process.
The defense of theleader of Venezuela’s largest opposition bloc – the Unitarian Democratic Platform (PUD) – Edmundo González Urrutia, denounced Wednesday the violation of the right to “the presumption of innocence” of the anti-chavista leader, who “have been prequalified crimes” on the basis of an investigation that “was announced recently.”
“He is already practically being found guilty by initiating criminal proceedings, a criminal investigation that was announced recently, on August 23,” said the opponent’s lawyer, José Vicente Haro, in front of the headquarters of the Public Prosecutor’s Office (MP, Prosecutor’s Office), in Caracas, where he went to hand over a letter with the reasons for González Urrutia’s failure to attend – to the three summons issued by this institution.
The MP points to González Urrutia of “usurpation of functions,” “forgetting public documents,” “instigation of disobedience of laws,” “conspiracy,” “sabotage to damage systems and association (to commit a criminal),” according to the citations published by the tax office on social networks.
Haro explained that the document addressed to the Prosecutor’s Office points to “all the constitutional and legal reasons” for which “there has been no appearance” of González Urrutia, due to the “defenseful degree in which he is located,” among other factors, for the prequalification of crimes.
“In a summons ballot, crimes should not be pre-qualifying and that is not typical of an action by the Public Prosecutor’s Office, a court has to do so when the investigation is already advanced,” said the jurist, who pointed out that, in addition, the opposition leader “have been violated the constitutional guarantees of due process” by not indicating “the character with which he is being summoned.”
In addition, the Prosecutor’s Office is called upon to “because of compliance with the Constitution” and “do not intend to prosecute or criminalize acts or considerations of a political nature.”
The investigation against González Urrutia relates to the publication of a website, in which anti-chavismo claims to have charged “83.5 percent of the electoral records” collected by witnesses and board members on the night of the election, to support his complaint of fraud in the July 28 presidential elections.
The PUD released these minutes, which the Executive calls “false,” after the National Electoral Council (CNE) proclaimed as the winner of the elections to Nicolás Maduro, which has received questions from numerous countries, some of which they support that González Urrutia won by a wide margin.
This article has been translated after first appearing in La Prensa Grafica