On August 25, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) publicly announced that it had formally submitted Case No. 14.267 to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR). The case concerns the arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance, torture, and extrajudicial execution of Venezuelan political leader Fernando Alberto Albán Salazar, perpetrated by state agents in October 2018, as well as the harassment of his family and lawyers and the impunity surrounding these acts.
On October 5, 2018, Fernando Albán was detained at Maiquetía International Airport by agents of the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service (SEBIN) without a warrant, without being caught in the act, and without any explanation of the reasons for his arrest. His whereabouts were denied to his family by the repressive agency, and he was held incommunicado for several hours, a victim of enforced disappearance, until the following day when he was able to call his family and warn them that he was “under a lot of pressure to implicate Congressman Julio Borges” in connection with a drone attack plot against Nicolás Maduro on August 4 of that year.
On October 8, 2018, while lawyers awaited Mr. Albán’s court appearance, the then Attorney General of the Republic, Tarek William Saab, announced on television his death after falling from the 10th floor of the SEBIN headquarters in Plaza Venezuela (Caracas). The official Venezuelan state spokesperson (hastily led by the Public Prosecutor’s Office) labeled the death a “suicide.”
Considering multiple inconsistencies, including the absence of blood at the scene, the lack of photographs documenting the location of the body, the presence of bruises and scratches on various parts of the body, and contradictions regarding Mr. Albán’s alleged absence of handcuffs and shoes, despite statements to the contrary from SEBIN officials, the IACHR determined that the State failed to rebut the presumption of responsibility for the death that occurred in custody. Furthermore, it established that Fernando Albán was subjected to torture, that his death constituted an extrajudicial execution, and that the true motivation for his detention by SEBIN agents, under the pretext of involvement in a supposed attack against Maduro, stemmed from his political activism.
The Albán case exposes the actual operations of the counterintelligence and intelligence agencies in Venezuela (SEBIN and DGCIM). Far from fulfilling national or citizen security functions, they act as arms of persecution for the Executive branch, neutralizing dissent. The recurring practice of isolating and holding detainees incommunicado facilitates the systematic application of physical and psychological torture outside of judicial oversight, a characteristic pattern of state terrorism in Venezuela.
Another serious pattern illustrated by this case is the hasty and unfounded “suicide” claim offered by Venezuelan authorities before conducting an objective forensic examination. These premature and illegal official statements, intended to interfere with judicial processes and often damage the honor and reputation of opposition leaders, are yet another unequivocal sign of the lack of independence of the judiciary and the Attorney General’s office in the country. The investigations in this case were characterized by procedural flaws, manipulation of medical records, and the summary closure and subsequent downgrading of the charges to absolve the chain of command involved of responsibility.
The serious human rights violations documented in the Albán case fully coincide with the findings of the UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission (FFMV) and the investigations of the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (Venezuela I Situation). These acts, which confirm enforced disappearance, arbitrary deprivation of liberty, torture, and extrajudicial execution for political reasons, when they form part of a systematic attack against the population, as in Venezuela, constitute crimes against humanity under the Rome Statute and are criminally prosecutable at all times and in all places.
The IACHR requested the Inter-American Court of Human Rights to order the Venezuelan State to implement reparations measures, which can be summarized as follows:
1. Justice: Conduct independent and impartial investigations to punish the perpetrators, both those who carried out the acts and those who ordered them, including the chain of command.
2. Reparations: Expunge all fabricated judicial records or files against the victim and provide guarantees of protection and compensation to their family members.
3. Guarantees of Non-Repetition: genuine independence in the appointment of the Attorney General; mandatory training in due diligence and the rights of detainees for all officials of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, the Judiciary, and the SEBIN (Bolivarian National Intelligence Service); and corrective measures to cease stigmatizing statements and interference by political authorities in judicial processes.
Although the de facto regime headed by Delcy Rodríguez maintains a position of contempt for the decisions of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the judgment issued by the Inter-American Court will establish the truth of what happened, generating a concrete international obligation for Venezuela to provide comprehensive reparations and prevent similar events from recurring. It will also serve as fundamental evidentiary input for the investigation underway before the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court and will strengthen the legal foundations for the objectives of memory, justice, and reparations as essential components of the restoration of democracy and transitional justice in Venezuela.