Caracas (AFP) – Venezuela announced a probe Monday into torture claims by 252 migrants the United States had sent to a notorious Salvadoran prison where they said they were beaten, sexually abused, and fed rotten food. Attorney General Tarek William Saab presented photos and testimonies at a news conference in Caracas of some of the men, who said they had feared not making it out alive. Several had bruises on their bodies, marks of being shot with rubber bullets, and one had a split lip.
Andry Hernandez Romero, a 32-year-old beautician among those sent to the notorious CECOT prison as part of US President Donald Trump’s migrant crackdown, said he barely survived the ordeal. “We were going through torture, physical aggressions, psychological aggressions,” he said in a video presented by Saab. “I was sexually abused.” Saab said the prosecutor’s office was interviewing the returned migrants. Many spoke of being held in “inhuman cells,” deprived of sunlight and ventilation, and given rotten food and unsafe drinking water. The men had no access to lawyers or their relatives, and the last time many of them were seen was when President Nayib Bukele’s government issued photos of them arriving at the prison shackled and with their heads shorn.
By Monday afternoon, the migrants had not yet been reunited with their families. Officials said they were undergoing medical exams, being issued new Venezuelan ID cards, and interviewed by the prosecutor’s office. Mercedes Yamarte, 46, told AFP she was preparing a welcome party for her 29-year-old son Mervin — one of the men released from the prison Bukele built as part of his mass anti-gang crackdown. She had put up balloons, banners, and prepared food at their home in a poor neighborhood of Maracaibo in northern Venezuela, but had no idea when to expect him. At lunchtime on Monday, she received a call and heard the words: “Mom, it’s Mervin.” “I hadn’t heard my son’s voice in four months and seven days; listening to him was a joy, a joy I cannot describe,” she told AFP.
The men were accused in the United States of being gang members and flown in March to El Salvador, after Trump invoked rarely used wartime laws to deport the men without court hearings. Their treatment elicited an international outcry. Saab said the Venezuelan investigation would target Bukele and other Salvadoran officials for alleged crimes against humanity. And he urged the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the UN Human Rights Council to act. The men were freed last Friday and flown back home in what the Trump administration said was an exchange for 10 Americans or US residents and dozens of “political prisoners” held in Venezuela.
President Nicolas Maduro on his TV show Monday claimed Bukele had tried “last minute” to prevent the migrants from leaving. “You could not stop the first plane, but for the second plane he put some car on the runway…to provoke either an accident or prevent them from leaving,” he said. Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado labeled the process as an “exchange of prisoners of war” during a television interview Monday. Venezuela itself faces an investigation by the ICC in The Hague, with similar allegations of torturing prisoners and denying them access to legal representation. Hundreds of people are held for political reasons in Venezuela, according to rights group Foro Penal. Some 2,400 people were arrested, 28 killed, and 200 injured in a crackdown on protests that broke out last July after Maduro claimed victory in elections he is widely accused of having stolen.
On Sunday, Maduro’s government insisted negotiations for the migrants’ release were held “only with the United States of America” and not “the clown” Bukele.
© 2024 AFP
