The Second Trial Court of the state of Nueva Esparta, in eastern Venezuela, granted full freedom on Friday for Chilean-Venezuelan journalist Braulio Jatar, who was arrested in September 2016 and accused of money laundering.
“After five months and more than 20 hearings, a sentence was handed down in my case, being acquitted of all the charges presented by the prosecutor’s office and agreeing to my full freedom,” Jatar wrote in a statement released to the public through his Twitter account.
The journalist was arrested on September 3, 2016, a day after Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro took a tour of the popular community of Villa Rosa on eastern Margarita Island, Nueva Esparta state.
During that visit, dozens of citizens rebuked Maduro with complaints, insults and banging pots in protest at his presence, facts that the communicator reported on his digital news portal before being arrested.
Although Jatar’s relatives maintained throughout the process that the journalist was not at the site of the protest that took place against the Chavista leader, venezuelan authorities assured that the editor could have been involved in the organization of that protest.
In his statement, Jatar explains that the judge in the case established that his sentence “had been carried out without complying with the conformities of the law” and that it was not possible to prove illicit money in his possession. The journalist also thanked the people, institutions and governments that advocated for his cause.
From the Twitter of the National Union of Venezuelan Press Workers (SNTP), they recalled that Jatar was imprisoned in four prisons, until 2017, when he obtained the measure of house for jail.
“The SNTP celebrates the freedom of Braulio Jatar and we demand that the State make reparation for the damages for the unjust prison to which he was subjected. No one should be judged for thinking differently, let alone for reporting, as was the case with Braulio. We ask for respect for the exercise of journalism,” was the position of the union organization.
