Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez maintains in detention varying numbers of political prisoners at any given time, but the case which has stood out the most over the past year has been that of Judge Maria Lourdes Afiuni.  Imprisoned for no reason and no crime beyond the personal recrimination and vengeance of the president, Judge Afiuni had the misfortune of presiding over a court hearing for my former client Eligio Cedeño.  Despite pressure and threats, she admirably performed her duties as a judge and complied with the law to order Cedeño’s release (he had been held for almost three years without trial as a victim of political persecution).  Chavez immediately went on television to play the role of prosecutor, judge, and jury, pre-emptively instructing the courts to imprison Afiuni as a “bandit” deserving the harshest punishment, all before charges or even preliminary hearings were held.  It was an outrage on par with Vladimir Putin’s recent “sentencing” of Khodorkovsky via television.

Writing in the Guardian today, journalist Rory Carroll provides a glimpse into the terrible cruelty and arbitrary abuse of institutions which have occurred in this case: