Venezuela's President Starts to Look Desperate
Deporting immigrants at rifle point, reigniting long-settled claims to a neighbor's oil reserves, sending soldiers instead of groceries to depleted supermarkets -- just when you'd think Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro could go no further to turn his country into an outlaw state, the leader of the Bolivarian Republic has trumped himself -- criminalizing dissent.
On Sept. 10, a circuit court condemned Leopoldo Lopez, the Maduro regime's most charismatic critic, to nearly 14 years imprisonment for inciting violence during last year's street demonstrations.
Technically speaking, Judge Susana Barreiros's ruling was the act of the independent Venezuelan judiciary. Yet during the lengthy trial, Lopez, a 44-year-old Harvard-trained economist and former Venezuelan mayor, was barred from presenting physical evidence and allowed to call only two defense witnesses -- direct violations of Venezuelan due process -- and the media was locked out of the courtroom.
The prosecution, on the other hand, summoned more than 100 witnesses, and though none placed Lopez at the scene when violence flared, Barreiros gave him the maximum sentence.
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-09-14/by-jailing-leopoldo-lopez-venezuela-s-maduro-looks-desperate
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