Mayor Rafael Ramírez Colina was deprived of his defenders

The opposition mayor of the Maracaibo municipality, Rafael Ramírez Colina—arrested on Tuesday—was “deprived of his defenders,” his wife, Vanessa Linares de Ramírez, denounced this Saturday.who said that “deprivation of liberty” against the opponent was ratified in a hearing at the headquarters of the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service (Sebin).

“So far, we have received news that a hearing has been held at the Sebin headquarters in Maracaibo, where, illegally, the deprivation of liberty of Mayor Rafael Ramírez along with other detainees has been decreed,” He said through X, without specifying the names of the other prisoners.

Likewise, he stated that preventing access to a private defense is “contrary to due process and the legitimate right to defense” established in the Constitution and the laws, while stating that “again” it is demonstrated that it is “a fact of political persecution.

He added that “no one” has been able to see the mayor and it is not known “what condition he is in.”

Ramírez Colina is accused by the Prosecutor’s Office of “serious irregular acts” related to corruption, while the Minister of Interior Relations, Justice and Peace, Diosdado Cabello, accuses the opponent of handing over to “far-right political parties” resources obtained through of tax collection.

This Saturday, the opposition party Primero Justicia reiterated its rejection of the arrest of Ramírez Colina and agreed to “reinforce complaints” before international bodies, without specifying which ones, in the face of “the deprivation of liberty and systematic judicialization as part of State terrorism,” applied -he stated- by ​​President Nicolás Maduro.

The mayor is one of the 154 opposition politicians who, according to María Corina Machado’s party, Vente Venezuela, are imprisoned in the country, the majority after being apprehended in the weeks before and after Maduro’s controversial re-election in the presidential elections on the 28th. July, which has not been recognized by many countries.

In these elections, Ramírez Colina supported the candidacy of the opposition standard-bearer Edmundo González Urrutia, and joined the “legitimate citizen request” that the electoral body “publish the results” disaggregated, after the opposition’s complaint of “fraud” , which claims that Maduro was defeated in the presidential elections.