2024-07-06 09:44:36
In recent months, three protected witnesses linked to cases involving foreign organised crime have been executed for assisting the justice system.
On June 5, two bodies appeared in a vacant lot in Lo Echevers, in the commune of Lampa, who had more than six bullet impacts in the abdomen and face.
According to the Organized Crime and Homicide Team (ECOH), these were the bodies of Junior and Klivert, two 20-year-old Venezuelan youths who had the status of protected witnessesin a confidential case of the Public Prosecutor’s Office against organized crime.
“They were like two very quick bursts. They took them down, let them run and then they shot them. That’s where they fell. From what they say, it was like that, because the blood wasn’t like that… they shot them there.”a witness told T13.
For its part, Alicia Díaz, head of the Victims and Witnesses Division of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, He declined to provide further details on the errors that led to these protected witnesses being killed for their assistance in bringing justice to justice.
“As these are types of witnesses who are under confidential proceedings, both the protection measures and the process that has occurred there to violate the protection that they were entitled to, we are not commenting on that because we could violate the confidentiality of the same,” he explained.
Junior and Klivert thus joined Mayra, another young Venezuelan woman who was murdered in a service station in Ovalle last March, for collaborating with the Justice to arrest members of the Aragua Train in the area.
The budget of the Public Prosecutor’s Office allocates 5.5 billion pesos to the protection of victims and witnesses, which translates into 420 thousand pesos for the protection of protected witnesses.
However, Alicia Díaz downplayed these events, stating that although there is no official data on the murder of collaborators of the Prosecutor’s Office, their number would be “very small.” We have a permanent division that has been in operation for many years. As a matter of fact, last year we had more than 13 thousand witnesses with protection and all of those witnesses received their measures and we did not have any person who died in the criminal process.”