Maria Corina Machado conspiracy trial has been dormant for 20 years

According to judicial sources, for 20 years, the 41st Control Court of Caracas ordered the trial of Maria Corina Machado, accused of conspiracy. The above-mentioned document was submitted to the 28th Trial Court of Caracas, which may not yet hold a hearing to debate Machado’s guilt or innocence.

The criminal prosecution of Machado began in March 2004, when there were rumors in Venezuela of launching a recall referendum against the then-president Hugo Chávez. The Chavista leaders saw that Machado would use the electoral event to attack the country. That is why they filed two complaints against Machado with the Public Ministry through documents signed by Carlos Delgado, Beatriz Rodríguez, Ramón Márquez, Ismael García, Francisco Ameliach, William Lara, Rodolfo Sanz, Olga Azuaje and Oscar Figuera.

The investigation was assigned to Luisa Ortega Díaz, then the sixth National Prosecutor, who collected documents establishing links between Súmate, a civil association led by María Corina Machado, and American entities such as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). To be precise, the Public Ministry obtained the contract between NED and Súmate, signed number 2003-548.0, aimed at financing voter education courses. But at the time Súmate was at the forefront of the collection of signatures for the removal of Chávez.

During the process of collecting signatures and submitting them to the National Electoral Council (CNE), the electoral body detected 876,017 irregular signatures, as they were identical to the handwriting that the media called “flat signatures”. The then Electoral Chamber intervened and, by ruling No. 24, issued on March 15, 2005, ordered the CNE to accept the 876,017 uniform signatures. The aforementioned ruling was drafted by the President of the Chamber, Alberto Martini Urdaneta, and supported by his colleagues Orlando Gravina and Rafael Hernández Uzcátegui.

Regardless of these events, the Public Ministry pushed forward with the criminal prosecution of Machado and requested the trial of Director Sumate for the crime of “undermining the republican signature that the State gave to itself”. Judge Norma Sandoval accepted this approach and ordered the trial of Director Sumate, but released him according to the Supreme Court’s ruling. In addition to Machado, Alejandro Pras and Luis Enrique Palacios were also indicted.

The case was heard by the Seventh Trial Court of Caracas, headed by Elías Álvarez, which convened three hearings on December 6, 2004, January 24 and February 7, 2005, but none of them took place.

Between 2010 and 2011, the trial was attempted to start in the 28th Trial Court of Caracas, but the then president of the Caracas Judicial Circuit, Zinnia Briceño, verbally ordered “to put him to sleep”. Currently, the 28th Trial Court of Caracas, where the case file of Sumate is located, is in charge of Judge Jackson Blanco. According to judicial sources, it is not clear so far whether Blanco has held the first hearing of the above-mentioned trial that was ordered 20 years ago.