Lawyer

On April 5^th, 2005, the Attorney General’s office has summoned Dr Carlos Ayala Corao, a very well-known and respected human rights defender, to come before the Attorney General on April 14^th 2005 to answer questions relating to the coup attempt in April 2002. 

The Republic’s Prosecutor has decided to charge lawyer Carlos Ayala Corao on the events of April 12 2002 , with involvement in the coup against Mr Chavez. The charge is specious: Mr Ayala not only opposed the coup but, during it, secured the release of a detained CHAVISTA legislator. Opposition supporters who signed the petition calling for last year's referendum complain of subsequent discrimination, such as being fired from public-sector jobs or being denied passports.

Ayala appeared before the prosecutor who told him that his case had been postponed, and ordered him to present himself next week. He was given no explanation for the delay nor informed about the grounds of the investigation. 

Carlos Ayala Corao, one of Latin America’s most prominent human rights lawyers was summoned to appear this morning before a Caracas public prosecutor. The prosecutor was to notify Ayala of the opening of a criminal investigation against him, apparently for alleged involvement in the failed April 2002 coup against Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.

Carlos Ayala Corao, who is currently president of the nongovernmental Andean Commission of Jurists,   is an international human rights lawyer, former Vice-Chairman of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. He has been a Human Rights activist for a very long time. He was a member of the Interamerican Commission on Human Rights. He has been a defender of the Human Rights of indigenous people, adviser to COFAVIC and trainer and teacher in the program for Human Rights of the OAS

Carlos Ayala has been a prominent litigant in cases of human rights violations in Venezuela before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, often accompanying representatives of Venezuelan non-governmental human rights groups. On March 3 he participated in a special session of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights devoted to an examination of human rights in Venezuela. After the meeting, the commission issued a statement expressing concern at the situation of risk and stigmatization affecting human rights defenders in Venezuela. 

Human rights groups, including Human Rights Watch, are demanding that the Chavez government drop its investigation into a possible link between international human rights lawyer Ayala Corao and the coup that briefly deposed Hugo Chavez in 2002.

 This is a clear-cut case of political persecution, targeting someone who has been an effective critic of the Chávez government’s human rights record.

During the aborted coup attempt, Ayala intervened to protect the rights of a pro-Chávez congressman who had been detained illegally and was being held incommunicado by the security services. The congressman, Tarek William Saab, subsequently thanked Ayala on television for his timely action. A special committee of the National Assembly that investigated the events of April 2002 also noted that Ayala waited for five hours outside police headquarters while he was seeking Tarek William Saab’s release. 

But Ayala’s case is not unique. It is part of a systematic practice by the Government, of political segregation and discrimination of its adversaries, which is not only unconstitutional but also inhuman, which we will begin to denounce starting tomorrow, in this page, with the most dramatic cases of Venezuelans that have been the victims of the Chavista McCarthyism.

Background :

Over the past year, the pro-Chávez majority in the Venezuelan legislature has severely weakened judicial independence in Venezuela. In December, the National Assembly named 12 new justices to the Supreme Court after a law passed the previous May enlarged the court from 20 to 32 members. The pro-Chávez coalition justifies the enlargement of the Supreme Court as a response to pro-opposition rulings, such as a highly questionable decision that absolved four military officers charged with participating in the 2002 coup. 

Last month, following the new judicial appointments, the court’s Constitutional Chamber annulled the acquittals—a decision apparently without precedent in recent Venezuelan legal history. 

Numerous recent newspaper articles indicate that the attorney general is currently considering criminal proceedings against more than 200 people for politically motivated offenses, including involvement in the coup attempt. Defense lawyers expect the number to rise significantly in the coming months.