The Venezuelan justice handed over the headquarters of the newspaper El Nacional, critical of the government, to the Chavista leader Diosdado Cabello, after being embargoed in May 2021 after a lawsuit for “moral damage”reported the media on its website.
“In an irregular and clandestine judicial auction,” says a press release from the newspaper, “The property of the headquarters of El Nacional and the lots of land on which it is built was directly awarded to Diosdado Cabello Rondón”, number two of the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), behind President Nicolás Maduro.
The decision was made “by Judge Lisbeth del Carmen Amoroso Hidrobo, sister of the comptroller general (…), Elvis Amoroso Hidrobo, on January 27 of this year, without the auction posters having been regularly published in the that the day, time and minimum amount for the interested parties to make their offers must be publicly reported”, adds the text.
The decision comes after the embargo announced in May 2021 to cover the 13 million dollars that the Supreme justice court (TSJ), of pro-government line, ordered the newspaper to pay Cabello in a lawsuit for defamation, filed in 2015.
“With this illegal adjudication, which due to the irregular manner in which it was executed, could well be described as ‘judicial robbery’, part of the sentence imposed on this newspaper is completed, for the alleged moral damages caused (…), in exercise legitimate part of his investigative journalism,” indicates El Nacional.
Cabello took legal action against the outlet after the publication of a report by the Spanish newspaper ABC that linked him to drug trafficking.
After presenting the complaint, the powerful leader launched several threats to the media outlet founded eight decades ago and promised to turn it into a university or use its land for the construction of popular housing.
“I don’t want money for myself”, said Cabello in one of his statements on the case.
The Venezuelan justice considered that Cabello was a “victim” of a “very serious moral damage”. Similar lawsuits were dismissed at the same time in Spain and the United States against media outlets from those countries.
The way in which the case has been handled has generated a wave of criticism against the Venezuelan justice system. The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) considered, when condemning the decision, that the delivery of the newspaper to Cabello is the “consummation of the ‘theft of the century’ to independent journalism.”
More than a hundred media outlets have closed since Maduro came to power, denounces the NGO Espacio Público. (I)
Source: Eluniverso
Paul is a talented author and journalist with a passion for entertainment and general news. He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he has established herself as a respected voice in the industry.
