Edmundo González ignores the Venezuelan Prosecutor’s Office and does not appear

“The Public Ministry wants to submit me to an interview without specifying in what situation it expects me to appear and pre-qualifies crimes that have not been committed. The Attorney General of the Republic has repeatedly behaved like a political accuser. He already condemns and now promotes summons without guarantees of freedom and due process,” says Edmundo Gonzalez.

Since Sunday night, the opposition candidate for the presidency of Venezuela announced that he would not appear this Monday before the Attorney General’s Office, where he was summoned to be “interviewed” for his alleged responsibility in the publication of electoral records on a website that Unitary Platform He claimed to have won the July 28 presidential election by more than three million votes.

The Venezuelan Prosecutor’s Office and the Supreme Court have described these documents, copies issued by voting machines and collected by election witnesses, as “fraudulent” after the court ruled that they “certified the validity” of the results announced by the electoral authority as the winner. Nicolás Maduro received 51% of the vote.

This Monday, the prosecutor’s office in which Edmundo González had to appear, woke up as usual. It was already known that the opponent would not appear. After the time of the summons, the Public Ministry issued a second summons, setting the date of the interview for this Tuesday morning. “Please appear on August 27 at 10:00 am (three o’clock in the afternoon in Spain) to give an interview in relation to the events investigated by this office, related to the publication and maintenance, of the page” Web resultsconvzla.com.

González Urrutia had already been declared “in contempt” by the Electoral Chamber of the Supreme Court because he had neglected the call of that instance to appear with the rest of the presidential candidates and participate in the “controversial electoral” appeal launched by Nicolás Maduro before magistrates to certify his victory, a procedure not established in Venezuelan law.

“There are no interviews in criminal investigations. There are depositions as a witness or a defendant. The person must be informed of the condition under which they make the declaration. If it is as an accused, you can choose not to testify,” said retired Supreme Court Justice Blanca Rosa Marmol.

In the Venezuelan legal system, the door is opened so that, after several summons, the Public Ministry can declare the accused “insubordinate”, or make the person investigated renege, or indicate that he is not cooperating with the investigation and finally request a court order for his arrest.

The opposition has made the call for Wednesday, a month after the elections. A national mobilization in Venezuela. Opposition leader expected to arrive in Caracas Maria Corina Machado reappearance in public. Opposition leaders remain in a secret location in anticipation of the ruling party’s alleged intentions to arrest them. Attorney General, tarek william saabIt has been reported that there is still no arrest warrant against him, but Maduro has described him as a “fugitive from justice”.

While the government and the prosecutor’s office say the minutes released by the opposition are false, several organizations support their authenticity, among them the Carter Center, which participated in the elections as an observer invited by the CNE. In addition, a UN panel of experts reviewed “a sample” that it certified as authentic.

In both cases, the organizations have called for the publication of the disaggregated data of the electoral count, as have the governments of Latin America – including Mexico, Brazil and Colombia that are involved in the negotiation process – the United States and the European Union. Without this, they have warned, it is difficult to recognize Maduro for a new presidential term (2025-2031).