Monica Spear's murder in January 2014 sparked a huge debate in Venezuela in regards to it's insecurity problem, and was used as a building block for the guarimba insurrection or the Venezuelan Opposition Civil Insurrection of 2014. While all of that was occurring, CICIP, the Venezuelan Criminal Investigation Police, was busy investigating the case and just now on yesterday there was a court case.
Venezuela does has the second-highest peacetime murder rate, just below of El Salvador, and it's city San Salvador.
------------------
<i>A court in Venezuela has sentenced three men to lengthy jail sentences for the killing of Venezuelan beauty queen Monica Spear in January.
The three had pleaded guilty.
Ms Spear, 29, and her British partner, Thomas Berry, were shot dead in January in front of their five-year-old daughter during a roadside robbery.
UN figures suggest that Venezuela has the second-highest peacetime murder rate in the world, but the brutality of the crime shocked the country.
Prosecutors said the three men were part of a larger gang which targeted motorists along a highway leading from Valencia to Puerto Cabello.
The court said seven other people were still on trial for the crime but had denied the charges.
The sentences for the three men range between 24 and 26 years in jail.
The family, who lived in the US, was on a visit to Ms Spear's home country when they were targeted.
They were travelling at night from the city of Merida to the capital, Caracas, when their car hit a sharp object, puncturing two tyres.
While they waited for breakdown assistance, they were ambushed by the armed gang.
When the couple and their daughter hid inside the car, they were shot at by the robbers.
Ms Spear and Mr Berry died instantly. Their daughter, Maya, was shot in the leg.
The murder of the popular beauty queen, who was crowned Miss Venezuela in 2004, prompted demonstrations against the country's high crime rate.
President Nicolas Maduro promised to respond with "an iron fist" and said he would make tackling crime one of the government's top priorities.
Last week, he announced his government would invest $47m (£29m) to further expand a plan to disarm civilians.
But opposition activists say impunity and corruption remain rampant and accuse his government of doing too little to tackle insecurity.</i>
Source: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-29339924
---------
CARACAS (Reuters) - Three men convicted of murdering a former Miss Venezuela and her ex-husband this year were sentenced to at least 24 years in jail in a case that shook the crime-ridden South American nation, authorities said.
Monica Spear, 29, a soap opera actress, and Thomas Berry, 39, died after being attacked when their car broke down at night on a highway in central Venezuela in January.
The 2004 Miss Venezuela winner lived in the United States but was vacationing in her homeland at the time. The pair's 5-year-old daughter survived but took a bullet in her leg.
Three men confessed to their involvement in the murder, the public prosecutor's office said in a statement.
Jean Carlos Colina, 19, got a 26-year sentence, while Jose Ferreira Herrera, 18 and Nelfrend Jimenez Alvarez, 21, were jailed for 24 years, the statement said. Four other men, one woman, and two adolescents still face proceedings in the case.
The case devastated Venezuelans who saw it as a particularly awful symbol of the violent crime they have long suffered.
Venezuela's official homicide rate late year was 39 per 100,000 inhabitants, but local non-government organizations put the figure at nearly twice that for a total of 24,000 deaths.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has said beating violent crime is a top priority and spoke movingly about Spear's death at the time. His critics say state anti-crime plans do not tackle root causes, such as impunity for many criminals, corrupt judges and complicity by some poorly paid police.
(Writing by Andrew Cawthorne; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
Source: http://af.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idAFKCN0HJ03A20140924
---------------
It is worth mentioning that despite the iron fist Maduro promises, the country does not have the death penalty and was THE first countries to abolish it after gaining independence. There is also no life imprisonment, as the maximum sentence of any serious crimes is 30 years.
This will be one of the most buried stories in Venezuela as it was one of a series of events that has contributed towards the Guarimba Insurrection on Youth Day on Feb. 12. As this case is officially closed, Monica Spear and Thomas Berry can finally rest in peace.
No comments:
Post a Comment