For Venezuela and the world there is no doubt that Councilman Fernando Albán was assassinated at the hands of the regime of Nicolás Maduro; especially after evidence emerged that numerous protocols were violated in the handling of his death certificate.
The contradictions generated by the Venezuelan government do not corroborate the alleged suicide; everything indicates that Albán was killed by an official of the Bolivarian Intelligence Service (Sebin) while he was being tortured.
The unofficial version of the story is that Albán died while he was tortured, and that to cover it up, he was thrown from the 10th floor of the SEBIN building. The international community is outraged: the European Union, USA, Germany, Ecuador, the Lima Group, and Spain, demanded an independent investigation.
“The death certificate says that bruises are on the front of the body; that is, as if he had fallen face down. That really attracts my attention, because anyone who knows the structure of the Sebin building knows that the windows are vertical; it is almost impossible for a person to throw himself out the window like that, he has to go head first or feet first, explained human rights attorney Joel García.
And since the government released its official version of the “suicide” of Alban, strong evidence emerged that implicates the regime of Nicolás Maduro, and suggests that the political prisoner was brutally murdered.
And, on the one hand, the Ministry of the Interior in Venezuela said that Albán’s “suicide” was in a waiting room; while the Public Ministry stated that it was in a bathroom on the 10th floor of the main headquarters of the Bolivarian Intelligence Service (SEBIN).
The official version of the “suicide” in the bathroom was totally disproved, because the Venezuelan journalist Carla Angola released the architectural plans of the 10th floor of the building, where it is evident that the bathrooms do not have windows.
But in addition to this incongruity there is evidence that the regime violated the Minnesota protocol for irregularities in conducting its autopsy of the councilman.
The official document revealed that Albán allegedly died of trauma due to “falling from height”; however, this conclusion generates great doubts and rejection because it shows that there was no independent or objective investigation.
The autopsy protocol revealed severe cranioencephalic trauma, hypovolemic shock and abdominal thoracic trauma due to a fall from height. But according to the newspaper El Nacional, the forensic medical procedure did not last more than five minutes and, according to medical sources from Bello Monte in Caracas, “autopsies can take up to 20 minutes, even if the cause of death is natural.”
But within the councilman’s death certificate there is another irregularity, mostly political: it was signed by doctor Arnoldo José Pérez Durán, who graduated in the second class as a Community Integral Physician (MIC) of the University of Health Sciences “Hugo Chávez Frías “.
According to the registry of the Venezuelan Social Insurance Institute, he joined the National Service of Medicine and Forensic Sciences SENAMECF on September 1, 2018; which means that he only has 38 days of on the job experience.
But this is not all. According to the Minnesota Protocol on extrajudicial executions, an autopsy must be signed and executed by a forensic pathologist and not by a “community doctor” graduated from a Chavista university without national or international recognition.
Additionally, it is a fact that the “doctor” has manifested through his social networks his affinity with Chavismo and the Maduro regime, he calls himself a “soldier of Chávez”. Everything indicates then, that in the forensic investigation there was no independence nor were the necessary steps undertaken to establish what really happened with Councilman Albán.
Fernando Albán had been detained for three days after being kidnapped by the dictatorship, after he was related to the alleged attack with explosive drones against Maduro at a military parade.
Amnesty International demanded an immediate, thorough, and independent investigation into the events and the cause of his death, including the possibility of torture. For the organization “there are several indications” that make suicide “unlikely.”
In connection with this, lawyer Fernando Fernández of Amnesty International said through his Twitter account that in the case of Albán two protocols should apply: the Istanbul Protocol on torture, and the Minnesota Protocol on extrajudicial executions. He added that stating that “the death of a detainee was a ‘suicide’, without an independent forensic examination, is irresponsible, to say the least.”
The Manual of Effective Research and Documentation on Torture, Punishment and Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment, better known as the Istanbul Protocol, is the first set of international standards to document torture and its consequences.
It was adopted by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in 2000. Its purpose is to serve as an international guide for the evaluation of people who have been tortured, in order to investigate cases of possible torture and report the findings to the justice or to the investigating agencies.
The Minnesota Protocol for the legal investigation of extralegal, arbitrary, and summary executions is a model procedure recommended by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to investigate crimes against humanity in which executions were allegedly committed illegally.
Dictatorship falsified article to deflect responsibility
Besides the two official versions that generate more questions than answers in relation to the death of Fernando Albán, it was learned that the regime decided to falsify a note from the Infobae website in order to disassociate itself from what may have been a vile murder committed at its hands.
The regime of Nicolás Maduro viralized a fake news article to disassociate itself from the death of Albán. To achieve their goal, they falsified an article in which opposition leader Julio Borges allegedly had called for Albán to commit suicide.
The information is false. Infobae never published such an article, and what went viral on social networks is a trick image manipulated through graphic design.
The fake news went viral on the account of Mario Silva, the host of the Chavista program “La Hojilla TV”.
The regime used the traditional Infobae design, made a fake title, put up a photo that the site does not have in its image bank, and invented a paragraph of text. All of the information contained therein was false, and with punctuation errors to boot.
With all these incongruities and irregularities, everything indicates that the death of Albán was a vile murder and not a suicide like the regime of Maduro wants to make it appear.