On Saturday night, Chavismo released the university leader John Álvarez, 24, whose kidnapping and torture by military agents shocked Venezuelan public opinion. The release of the young student of Anthropology and Law from the Central University of Venezuela (UCV) is part of the agreements reached between Washington and Caracas and occurs 72 hours after the multiple exchange between the alleged front man of Nicolás Maduro, the Colombian magnate Alex Saab, and around thirty prisoners and hostages, including 10 Americans and six union members involved in the Álvarez case.
“My priority now is health,” the young university student acknowledged at the prison door, along with his mother and his friends, who were waiting for him there. Álvarez also thanked the university authorities, who have pressed for his release during these weeks.
The young man did not forget the around 260 political prisoners who still remain in Maduro’s dungeons. “There are many political prisoners who need medical attention,” he insisted.
His release was scheduled for the first round of October, when the regime decided to release the journalist Roland Carreño, linked to the interim government of Juan Guaidó, and the political leader Juan Requesens. But he stalled then, as he also stalled in this week’s trade. The young man even passed various tests at the Forensic Medicine a few days ago.
Agents from the Directorate of Special Affairs (DAE), which are part of the General Directorate of Military Counterintelligence (Dgcim), kidnapped the young man in August and tortured him to make him record a video that directly accused unionists and social activists.
The soldiers beat him with a baseball bat after covering him with a pallet so as not to leave marks and performed electric shocks on his testicles, knees and ribs.
The torturers acted so fiercely that the young man lost vision in his left eye for weeks and suffered injuries to his left kidney. But the military did not obtain that false evidence. Álvarez acknowledged upon leaving prison that he had severe difficulties reading with his injured eye.
Precisely the six persecuted trade unionists, among them Emilio Negrín, leader of the National Trade Union Coalition, and Alcides Bracho, a member of the Marxist Red Flag, are now free after 500 days in prison, falsely accused of conspiracy and terrorism for promoting labor demands. and social.
