Venezuela: perpetrator of the murder of rapper Canserbero is sentenced to 25 years

The Attorney General’s Office of Venezuela reported on Friday the sentence to 25 years in prison for the confessed author of the murder of Venezuelan rapper Tirone González, known as Canserbero, in a controversial judicial process that began with the thesis that he had died by suicide in 2015. .

The artist’s manager, Natalia Améstica, pleaded guilty to the murder of the artist and her own partner, producer Carlos Molnar, before a criminal court on Thursday night, so the prosecutor’s office considers that “complete clarification” was achieved. of the case, in the words of the attorney general, Tarek William Saab before the press.

Due to the admission of the facts, the sentence against Améstica was reduced to 25 years in prison, five less than the maximum sentence provided for in Venezuelan laws. The Chilean producer confessed in a video, released in December by the Prosecutor’s Office, that she killed Canserbero because she did not want to pay him for a tour that she organized in Chile and Argentina and for refusing to maintain the professional relationship.

The prosecution originally handled the version of the suicide of the artist, considered one of the best rappers in Spanish, who allegedly jumped from the tenth floor of a building, located in the central city of Maracay, about 150 kilometers west of Caracas. He was 27 years old.

In the confession video, Améstica assured that Canserbero “didn’t want me to manage him,” in reference to his musical career, and that he refused to pay “what they owed me” for his investment in the tour.

The case had already been reopened at the beginning of November 2023 with the accusation of Améstica and his brother Guillermo, who helped him pretend that the death was the result of a fight, in which the rapper murdered Molnar – Améstica’s partner and bassist. of the reggae band Zion TPL—and then committed suicide.

The Améstica brothers were convicted of the crimes of “homicide qualified for futile reasons and with treachery in the degree of complicity, simulation of a punishable act and conspiracy (illegal association to commit crimes).” The brother of the singer’s manager also pleaded guilty.

Prosecutor General Saab said that the confession was obtained after a 12-hour interrogation, which took place between December 18 and 19 and in which he himself participated. He noted that so far 154 procedures have been carried out.

In addition, seven other people are linked, including several police officers, accused of helping to alter the scene of the crime that occurred on January 20, 2015.

In the confession, Canserbero’s manager narrated how the night a video was to be recorded in her apartment, she took the opportunity to alter a tea by placing “two blister packs” of a medication for anxiety and insomnia. The woman went to the kitchen – according to what she said – and approached Molnar to talk, when he was already drowsy with a knife.I attacked him in the neck, arm and back”.

When leaving the place, he continues, he met the rapper, who was asleep on a piece of furniture due to the effects of the pills and that was when he “attacked with two stab wounds in the side”.

Améstica indicated that he asked his brother for help, who arrived around midnight accompanied by three well-known officials, from a police force that he did not mention, to finish arranging the scene so that “it was a murder-suicide”. Her brother stabs Améstica’s partner several additional times and hits Tirone’s body with a pipe in the face, her brother said. The goal was to simulate a fight.

According to his explanation, the people who later arrived at the scene told him how to throw the body out of the window.

Guillermo Améstica also confirmed that version in a recorded confession. He added that, after notifying the authorities, the personnel of the Scientific, Criminal and Criminal Investigations Corps (CICPC) arrived, who noticed certain irregularities and requested a one-time payment to finish fixing the scene.

According to Natalia Améstica, her brother also made arrangements with prosecutors to confirm the suicide hypothesis.

The manager later fled to Chile, as she confessed, and returned to Venezuela due to a call from the Ombudsman’s Office, to which she went with the confidence that the prosecutor’s office “He said it was murder-suicide”.

In addition to the three CICPC agents, two prosecutors from the Public Ministry are being sought. The pathologist Solange Mendoza, who was in charge of performing the autopsy on the two bodies, was also charged, accused of the crimes of obstruction of justice, concealment and association to commit a crime. The pathologist “ignored the two stab wounds” that the singer received so that it would fit with the suicide theory.