justice system

Caracas, May 26, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – Venezuelan Attorney General Larry Devoe announced on Monday a formal investigation into recent unrest at the Barinas Judicial Detention Center (INJUBA). 

The prison began to make headlines last week when inmates seized control of the facility to denounce ill-treatment and physical abuse from authorities. The investigation followed the dismissal of prison director Elvis Macuare Guerrero, who had held the post for less than a week before the revolt.

“The Attorney General’s Office announces the launch of a criminal investigation into the events that took place on May 24, 2026, at INJUBA, where inmates staged a protest,” read the official statement. The investigation will focus on accusations of “cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment” allegedly carried out by security personnel inside the facility.

The probe followed dramatic scenes in which prisoners climbed onto the roof, burned mattresses, and held up banners demanding an end to what they described as a regime of terror. 

According to testimonies gathered by local journalists on the ground, the inmates accused prison authorities of recurring violence and torture, including systematic beatings and forced “ice-cold baths with electric currents.”

The riot was sparked after guards reportedly confiscated belongings and subjected a group of prisoners to violent searches.

In response to the unrest, authorities transferred over 100 female inmates out of the Barinas facility to reduce tensions. On Tuesday, General Giuseppe Cacioppo, head of the Barinas governorship security office, told press that the situation at INJUBA was calm and under control, with a further 818 male prisoners transferred to other penitentiary centers throughout the country.

Rodríguez raises judicial reform priorities

The Barinas inmate unrest coincided with the Venezuelan government announcing the impending release of hundreds of prisoners. On Friday, Acting President Delcy Rodríguez announced that 500 prisoners would be liberated “in the coming hours.” 

Three officers from the former Metropolitan Police were among those already confirmed free. Héctor Rovaín, Erasmo Bolívar, and Luis Molina were serving 30-year sentences for their involvement in the violence leading up to the brief 2002 coup against then-president Hugo Chávez. They had been arrested in 2003 and convicted in 2009.

According to official figures provided by the presidency, since the February approval of the Amnesty Law, a total of 8,740 people have received amnesty. Of these, 8,426 were still facing trial or under probation-type measures and had their cases dropped.

However, the government announcements have also drawn criticism. The Justicia, Encuentro y Perdón (JEP) NGO cautioned that “this type of public pronouncement [announcing more releases] generates enormous expectations,” warning that any failure to comply would represent a “new and cruel affront to human dignity.”

Rodríguez explained that the latest freed individuals had their cases and sentences reviewed through a “different mechanism,” evaluated via the Commission for Judicial Revolution and the Program for Peace and Democratic Coexistence, as opposed to the Amnesty Law.

During a televised working session on Saturday, the acting president framed the ongoing releases and the investigation into the Barinas prison riot as part of a broader transformation of the penal system. She likewise enacted a reform to the Organic Law of the Supreme Court (TSJ), expanding the number of magistrates from 20 to 32.

Rodríguez acknowledged prison overcrowding as one of the main issues plaguing the Venezuelan penitentiary system. She claimed that, according to official statistics, 68% of the incarcerated population in Venezuela comes from the poorest economic strata and vowed to advance judicial reforms that tackle the “criminalization of poverty.”

The Venezuelan leader went on to announce the beginning of the National Consultation for Penal Justice Reform on June 1. The public consultation aims to address what she identified as the “three great challenges” of the current system: procedural delays, judicial corruption, and the criminalization of poverty.

Rodríguez went on to denounce the “partisan and political” manipulation of the justice system.

The commission tasked with the consultation, headed by Attorney General Devoe, will hold meetings with academics, NGOs, judicial system workers, and other relevant actors.

Venezuela’s justice system came under the spotlight recently with the case of Victor Quero, who had an amnesty request denied despite having died in state custody months earlier. Authorities did not inform his mother, Carmen Navas, who continued to visit the prison in search of information. Navas passed away days after her son’s death was publicly acknowledged. The Attorney General opened an investigation into the case.

In recent years, human rights NGOs and prisoner relatives have denounced systematic due process violations and poor incarceration conditions.

Edited by Ricardo Vaz in Caracas.

SACRAMENTO — Dana Williamson, one of the political heavyweights at the center of a financial scandal involving gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra, looked shell-shocked Thursday morning in a federal courtroom in downtown Sacramento, as most folks do when bad choices collide with the hard realities of the justice system.

A thousand-yard stare in her eyes, Williamson responded “guilty” three times in a voice that required a microphone to be heard as the judge walked her through a plea deal reached days before with the U.S. Department of Justice. She likely won’t be sentenced until fall (possibly close to the general election) but will — again, just a likely here — at best face home confinement and at worst upward of three years in prison.

It’s a colossal fall for a woman who wasn’t so much a consultant as a political operative to Becerra, Gov. Gavin Newsom, former Gov. Jerry Brown and a slew of companies including Meta and PG&E. She was known at the Capitol as a woman who got things done, sometimes with finesse, sometimes not.

It was her savvy and ability to deliver whatever was needed through her deep connections and knowledge of the complicated structures — official and cultural — that govern the California halls of power that make her predicament all the more confounding. Especially because, far from stealing money for self-enrichment, she actually paid money to be part of this scheme.

That alone, to me, raises questions.

Though Williamson’s guilty plea may seem like an ending to the saga, it shouldn’t be, because there’s still a lot lurking in the dark corners of this deal.

If Becerra makes it past the primary, which seems (I’ll use that word again) likely, voters have a right to know.

Here’s the simple backstory, according to court documents. Becerra’s close aide, Sean McCluskie, took a pay cut to remain with his boss when he moved to Washington to become President Biden’s secretary of Health and Human Services.

Strapped for cash, McCluskie asked Williamson to receive money from Becerra’s dormant campaign account — which Becerra was legally not allowed to manage while holding federal office — and pass it through a bunch of other accounts before giving it to McCluskie’s wife as payment for a nonexistent job.

Williamson’s attorney, McGregor Scott, said Thursday that Williamson received $7,500 each month from the Becerra account and added $2,500 from her own funds before sending it on to ultimately reach McCluskie — for a total of $10,000 a month.

McCluskie was “living on a government salary,” Scott said Thursday after court. “Wife is home with the kids. They didn’t have enough money, and that’s where this all originated. [Williamson] was simply trying to help a friend in a pinch as best she could.”

Scott, a former Bush and Trump United States attorney, managed to get Williamson’s original 23-count indictment knocked down to the Becerra account issue, along with lying to the FBI and filing a false tax return.

McCluskie entered his own guilty plea in the case last November and is scheduled to be sentenced, along with the third lobbyist, in June.

Becerra, who is a slim-margin front-runner for governor, was the victim in this case — or more precisely, his state campaign bank account was, according to court documents.

There has never been any indication that Becerra was investigated as a participant, and he has forcefully denied wrongdoing, calling it a “gut punch” that his advisers allegedly betrayed him.

That, of course, hasn’t stopped the other candidates from using the case against him.

“My opponents have spent millions spreading lies to purposefully mislead voters,” he wrote Thursday on social media. “Today confirms what I have said from day one: I did nothing wrong. Case closed.”

Meanwhile, Scott, the attorney, also said Thursday that Williamson assumed, based on her conversations with McCluskie, that McCluskie had spoken to Becerra about the concept of the money transfer. Text messages in court records show a brief and ambiguous exchange between McCluskie and Williamson that backs that up.

Scott said that Williamson never spoke directly with Becerra about the scheme.

That leaves the distinct possibility that Williamson believed Becerra knew what was happening — but never asked him. Dumb? Maybe. But Williamson isn’t usually dumb.

“The understanding that McCluskie conveyed to my client was it was OK to proceed,” Scott said.

Becerra has repeatedly said he believed the $10,000 a month was a legitimate fee being paid to manage the funds in the dormant account while he could not — though that is an amount above what is usual for such work, as my colleague Dakota Smith has reported.

Becerra has also repeatedly used some variation of the “case closed” line, seemingly hoping to move past this scandal without further answers.

But at the very least, it deserves some kind of mea culpa from Becerra or lessons learned, a more robust conversation than the brush-off it’s been getting. Because either McCluskie is one heck of a con man who rolled both Becerra and Williamson, making both believe what was happening was kosher with entirely different tales, or someone isn’t being entirely honest.

Did Becerra never question why an account with almost no activity was costing so much to manage? Did he never wonder what Williamson was doing to earn all that money? Should he, with his decades of legal and political experience, have seen red flags, even with a trusted adviser? Or is Williamson, facing sentencing, just trying to paint herself in a sympathetic light?

“I’m not trying to paint my client as a victim,” McGregor said. “She’s accepted responsibility today for what she did by pleading guilty. She’s now a felon. So you know, we’re not trying to do anything to dance away from that.”

Williamson may be done dancing, but the music’s still playing, and the fancy footwork of politics continues.

Caracas, May 11, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – Venezuelan Attorney General Larry Devoe has opened an investigation into the death of Victor Hugo Quero Navas in state custody in July 2025.

“The investigation aims to clarify the facts in a timely and impartial fashion,” Devoe’s statement, published on Thursday, read. “There will be a prompt exhumation of [Quero’s] body in accordance with Venezuela’s penal code.”

Quero’s case drew headlines in recent days following reports that a request for amnesty under the Amnesty Law approved in February was denied, only for Venezuelan authorities to reveal that he had passed away months earlier.

On May 6, attorney Moisés Gutiérrez from the Human Rights and Democracy Coalition NGO informed that the Second Control Court in Caracas had denied amnesty for Quero due to the charges against him, which reportedly included terrorism, criminal association, and conspiring with foreign agencies, falling outside the scope of the Amnesty Law.

Gutiérrez argued that Quero, a 51-year-old Caracas businessman and retailer, was in a situation of “enforced disappearance,” having had no contact with relatives or a lawyer of his choice since being arrested in early January 2025.

On May 4, Public Ombudswoman Eglée Lobato met Quero’s mother, Carmen Teresa Navas, and vowed to “activate institutional mechanisms” to provide information on her son’s judicial case.

However, last Thursday, Venezuela’s Prison Ministry issued a statement disclosing that Quero had died on July 24, 2025, due to an “acute respiratory failure” following a “pulmonary thromboembolism.” Authorities added that he had been detained in the Rodeo I prison in the outskirts of Caracas since January 3, 2025 and was admitted to a hospital with “gastrointestinal bleeding” ten days before his death.

The Prison Ministry reported that Quero was buried on July 30, 2025, and that he had provided no next-of-kin information nor had any visits from relatives. Nevertheless, his mother made multiple documented visits to Rodeo I, only to receive no information on her son’s whereabouts.

The 82-year-old Navas was taken to Quero’s grave on Thursday and demanded a DNA test to confirm her son’s identity. She lamented having spent more than a year visiting the prison and judicial institutions without any answers. There was likewise no public information on any hearings in Quero’s case.

During an October visit to the Ombudsman’s office, Navas was informed of the charges against Quero and that he remained in Rodeo I, despite the fact that he had reportedly died three months earlier.

Following the latest revelations, multiple NGOs have accused Venezuelan judicial institutions of recurring human rights and due process violations. The Justicia, Encuentro y Perdón organization called for an “independent and exhaustive investigation” under the Minnesota Protocol on the Investigation of Potentially Unlawful Death.

Lavoe and Lobato took office in April following a parliamentary selection process. Their respective predecessors, Tarek William Saab and Alfredo Ruiz, have yet to comment on Quero’s case. 

Venezuelan Acting President Delcy Rodríguez did not address the case explicitly but vowed to take action against “deviations in the justice system.”

“The deviations in the penal justice system exist,” she said during a televised event on Saturday. “I have information and call for action against judges who charge fees to grant amnesty. This must stop.”

Venezuela’s February Amnesty Law grants a blanket amnesty for crimes committed in contexts of political violence since 1999. The law excludes serious human rights violations, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.

According to Venezuelan officials, more than 9,000 people have benefited from amnesty in recent months. A majority of them were not imprisoned but were still facing trial or parole-type measures.

In April, Rodríguez created a commission on penal justice reform, headed by Devoe, referring to “evils that persist” in the judicial apparatus and calling for a “truly humane justice system.” Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, also a member of the commission, said authorities were investigating issues of prison overcrowding and systematic trial delays.

Rodríguez had served as vice president since 2018, while Cabello took over as interior minister in August 2024. In 2021, Cabello headed a parliamentary commission tasked with undertaking a “judicial revolution.” However, complaints of prison overcrowding and poor conditions, as well as due process violations, continued.

Edited by Lucas Koerner in Caracas.