Several residents of the Rómulo Gallegos and Pedro Camejo municipalities were put under arrest on August 15. The relatives of the detainees denounced not knowing their whereabouts, after they visited the local headquarters of the Bureau for Scientific, Criminal and Forensic Investigations (CICPC), the Anti-Extortion and Kidnapping National Command (CONAS), and the General Directorate of Military Counterintelligence (DGCIM). The complainants have not received an answer as of August 18.

Rosa, sister of Williams José Hernández, one of the men apprehended by DGCIM officials when he was sitting in front of his house in La Macanilla on Sunday, August 15, told Radio Fe y Alegría Noticias that 72 hours after his brother’s “arbitrary detention”, they did not know his location and situation.

She pointed out that they visited the headquarters of the General Directorate of Military Counterintelligence, the CONAS, and the Bureau for Scientific, Criminal and Forensic Investigations in San Fernando, and “they told us that he was not there, and no one knew anything about that detention.”

They also visited the headquarters of the criminal courts in the capital of the state of Apure after it was rumored that the detainees would be transferred before the control court on Wednesday 18, which did not happen.

Rosa denied that her brother was involved in political activities and she does not understand the cause of his detention. She denounces that her brother has been kidnapped “since his right to communicate and have a lawyer of his choice has been violated.”

Williams’s wife also commented that “on the day of the raid, about 11 people were taken, including two women, one of them an elder.”

She also said that on the day that her husband and the other people were taken into custody, the officials arrived without any kind of court order, and “their faces were covered.”

Sources from the courts of the state of Apure reported that more than 50 people who were detained during the weekend in the towns of the Pedro Camejo and Rómulo Gallegos municipalities would probably be presented before the military court of the Integral Defense Zone in the state.

Family members point out that this is an unfair measure because their relatives are not criminals or members of guerrilla organizations and should not be treated as such.

Translated by José Rafael Medina