Venezuelan activist completes two weeks in jail without legal defense

Venezuelan activist Rocío San Miguel completed two weeks in jail on Friday without being able to talk to her lawyers or officially designate a defense team in court, denounced the non-governmental organization Provea.

“Rocío San Miguel has been unjustly detained in Venezuela for 14 days. A human rights defender who is a victim of enforced disappearance (…) is still unable to designate her trusted lawyers to defend her,” the NGO stated on X.

Her lawyers also denounced on Thursday that although the courts and the Bolivarian Intelligence Service (Sebin) informed them that the activist would be transferred from her cell to speak with her private defense, this didn’t happen, nor could they access the case file. “Since this morning, the defense team has been at the court waiting for the transfer of Rocío San Miguel and Alejandro González de Canales (San Miguel’s ex-partner) to be appointed as technical defense.

The transfer did not take place, and therefore the state of defenselessness continues,” denounced Joel García, San Miguel’s lawyer in X on Thursday. San Miguel’s daughter, Miranda Díaz, was able to visit her mother in the Sebin prison in Caracas on Sunday, thanks to the mediation of the Spanish government since both women have dual nationality. In a press conference on Monday, Attorney General Tarek William Saab asserted that San Miguel “acted as a spy” and denied her role as a human rights defender. The attorney general’s office presented alleged evidence of San Miguel’s involvement in a conspiracy.