homicides

The family of the brothers Natalia and Guillermo Améstica, of Chilean nationality, who were charged in December by the Attorney General of Venezuela Tarek William Saab for the qualified homicide in January 2015 in Maracay of the rapper Tirone González, Canserbero, and the reggae bassist Carlos Molnar, have requested help from the Chilean authorities.

Bárbara and Tamara Améstica, sisters of the accused, have traveled to Chile to request that Natalia Améstica, who was Molnar’s partner, and Guillermo, be represented by a private lawyer, and not by the public defender assigned to them. in Venezuela and with whom – they point out – they have not had contact, on the day before they must present their defenses at a hearing.

“We are asking for the possibility that my brothers can defend themselves, to have a private lawyer. “It’s the basics,” Bárbara Améstica tells EL PAÍS. Her parents left Chile in 1974, after the 1973 coup d’état, to live in Maracay, in the State of Aragua. Then they had three children: Bárbara, now 55 years old, Guillermo, 54, and Tamara, 53. Natalia, 44, was born in Venezuela.

In Chile, the lawyers Ciro Colombara and Jennifer Alfaro have assumed the representation of Bárbara and Tamara Améstica. “Notwithstanding the fact that we are convinced that they are innocent, they have been deprived of the right to defense, to present evidence and to know what they are accused of,” Colombara tells EL PAÍS. And he adds that the sisters “have come to Chile so that the Government can take a position and demand that their rights as Chilean citizens be respected.” On Wednesday, both attended a session of the Senate Human Rights Commission; Next week they will be received by the Foreign Relations Commission of the Chamber of Deputies and then by the Human Rights Directorate of the Chancellery. “The only thing missing is for President Boric to respond to the request for a meeting to hear about the case,” says the criminal lawyer.

On January 9, prosecutor Saab reported on the social network criminal actions.”

A photograph of Natalia and Guillermo Améstica.Sofía Yanjarí

The reopening of the case

Natalia Améstica, who has dual nationality, and Guillermo, Chilean, admitted their responsibility in the homicides of González and Molnar. Their testimonies were released by the prosecutor in a video in which they appear with their hands tied. For eight years the case had remained a murder-suicide and, after an argument, in the middle of a psychotic attack, Canserbero stabbed Molnar and then jumped from the tenth floor. The events occurred in the apartment that Natalia Améstica shared with Molnar.

The case was reopened in November and the 2015 hypothesis took a radical turn. Venezuelan Attorney General Tarek William Saab first charged the brothers with false attestation and obstruction of justice and in December with qualified homicide, among four other crimes, for which they were remanded in preventive detention. He also charged five other people, including the pathologist Solangel Mendoza, who would have performed the first autopsy on Canserbero in 2015.

Last Tuesday, meanwhile, the prosecutor presented the accusation and after that, explains Joel García to this newspaper, lawyer for the parents and sisters of the accused in Venezuela, the judge must set a preliminary hearing that “must be held within a period not less than 15 days nor more than 20 days.” It is an instance, he points out, to which the accused must arrive “with everything that helps, clarifies and favors.” “It is a race against time because it is the moment where the defense questions the accusatory document due to formal or substantive requirements and if that is not done, the person even less has a defense.”

García relates that after several attempts he has not been able to assume representation of the Améstica brothers, so he filed a constitutional protection that has not yet been resolved.

After the reopening of the case, Natalia and Guillermo Améstica were represented by private lawyers in Venezuela. The family points out that when they went to file an appeal they found out that their power of attorney had been revoked. “They are told that they no longer have the qualifications, because two handwritten letters arrived in which the accused decided to renounce their private defense and, therefore, it was decided to appoint a public defender for them. It was a cold water bath,” says Bárbara Améstica.

A letter to the Chancellery

Bárbara and Tamara Améstica tell EL PAÍS that the family held meetings in December at the consulate in Venezuela and also with the Chilean ambassador to Venezuela Jaime Gazmuri. Last Wednesday it was held in a special session in the Commission on Human Rights, Nationality and Citizenship of the Chilean Senate, chaired by Senator Francisco Chahuán. There they presented alongside lawyers Colombara and Alfaro. A part of the meeting, Colombara requested, was declared secret. “It was due to the sensitivity of the background and to avoid criminal prosecution,” says the lawyer.

The senators instructed the Chilean Foreign Minister Alberto van Klaveren to have “the measures that are necessary for our representatives in the Republic of Venezuela to adopt the pertinent actions in the case that affects the Chilean citizens Natalia and Guillermo Améstica, with special attention to their physical integrity, respect for the rules of due process and access to a private lawyer, all recognized as fundamental rights in the United Nations Charter.” “The above, without referring, in any case, to the pending case or to reviewing the foundations or contents of its resolutions,” the document states.

The letter was also signed by the senators of the Foreign Relations Commission, which Chahuán also chairs, José Miguel Insulza and José Manuel Rojo Edwards, of various political tendencies. Chahuán explains that it is a request that has already been made in other cases of Chileans who have faced proceedings abroad. “In the video, [los hermanos] They appear to have their hands tied, which clearly violates procedural guarantees,” he points out.

In the recordings, Natalia Améstica says that she sedated Molnar and González to kill them. And that she turned to her brother to “fix the events that happened.” She also noted that he bribed officials from the state intelligence service, Sebin, in order to alter the crime scene. In the videos, she alluded to a disagreement over Molnar’s non-payment of air tickets and money after the organization of a Canserbero tour at the end of 2014 through Argentina and Chile. She also said that the rapper did not want her to be his manager.

For the prosecutor, “these brutal revelations express how the Améstica brothers conspired out of hatred, envy, thirst for revenge and financial ambitions to kill Tirone González, Canserbero, and Carlos Molnar.” “We are facing two foreigners of Chilean origin who kill two Venezuelans, one of them a musical genius, before his death, during his career and after it, like that of Tirone José González,” said Saab. on December 29. “And his rights to defense, his judicial guarantees, are being respected. What different thing would have happened if two Venezuelans killed Víctor Jara in Chile? I don’t even want to imagine it. If some Venezuelans are in Chile, sometimes walking through a square, they attack them, they chase them. A brutal anti-Venezuelan xenophobia. Well, Venezuela is different. With all our flaws and mistakes, this is a noble people and a rule of law.”

His words were echoed in La Moneda. And the Undersecretary of the Interior of the Boric Government, Manuel Monsalve, responded: “In Chile we do not tolerate xenophobia, but we do have the obligation to apply the rule of law to all those who commit crimes, regardless of their nationality, regardless of their the immigration situation in which they are.”

On Wednesday, at the time of the incident in the Chilean Senate, Chahuán reported on the efforts of the parliamentary commission regarding the Amésticas. And he also alluded to Saad: “There have been statements by the prosecutor in which he accuses Chile of being a xenophobic people and that in Chile there is contempt, in his words, regarding the Venezuelan people. Here what we think, because we cannot focus on pending cases, even if they are in a neighboring country, is that at least due process is protected. It is very important that, at least, lawyers have access to court files, because they have had difficulties.”

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2024-01-13 07:33:01
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