Guevara Brothers: nearly 22 years imprisoned and a contempt order from the IACHR Court

Nearly 22 years after the arrests of former police commissioners Rolando, Otoniel and Juan Bautista Guevara, the Venezuelan judicial system has still not executed either the binding judgment of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR Court) ordering their immediate release or the procedural benefits that expired more than a decade ago for the Guevara brothers. On October 28, the defense attorney for the three officials and wife of Rolando Guevara, Jackeline Sandoval de Guevara, filed a new brief before the Sixth Court of First Instance in Enforcement Functions of Caracas to demand the corresponding psychosocial evaluations for parole, while the brothers remain confined 23 hours a day in cells at the El Rodeo I prison, in Miranda state. On January 19, 2026, the IACHR Court found the Venezuelan state guilty of human rights violations against the Guevara brothers, annulled the trial against them as a fraud, and ordered their immediate release and compensation. As early as March 2021, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention had demanded their release, and in August 2023 the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights brought the case before the international tribunal, whose decisions are binding under Article 23 of the Constitution. "Petitions have been filed submitting the judgment to all the competent bodies requesting its execution, and we have not received any response. In a casual interview, Deputy Jorge Arreaza stated that they have no obligation to execute that judgment since Venezuela is not within the inter-American system, forgetting — as the cited internationalist did — that at the time of the violations of the Guevaras' human and fundamental rights, Venezuela was indeed an integral part of the system, and therefore the state remains obligated," Sandoval explained in a telephone interview with Efecto Cocuyo. Outside the international jurisdiction, the very sentence computation of the criminal judicial circuit certifies that Rolando and Otoniel Guevara, sentenced on December 20, 2005 to 27 years and 9 months in prison for aggravated homicide and gang involvement, and Juan Bautista Guevara, sentenced to 30 years with the addition of unlawful possession of a weapon of war, have far exceeded the periods established by the Organic Code of Criminal Procedure (Copp) to access alternative formulas before their sentences expire on August 27, 2032. The Guevaras' defense points out that the enforcement courts rejected the requests for work detachment available since November 4, 2011, and those for open regime available since February 27, 2014, while leaving unanswered the parole petition filed on May 27, 2023, after surpassing 18 years and 6 months, equivalent to two-thirds of the prison term. "The most viable recourse is compliance with the IACHR Court judgment; however, if the state complied with the law, it could grant, today as of now, the alternative measures to serving the sentence," the jurist pointed out. Forced disappearance of 70 days and isolation in El Rodeo The Guevara brothers' imprisonment worsened on August 1, 2025, when all three were removed from their place of detention in El Helicoide without notification to their lawyers or relatives, remaining in a situation of forced disappearance for 70 days until their transfer to the El Rodeo I judicial penitentiary was confirmed. "They are in unsanitary conditions, practically incommunicado. They only receive visits on Saturdays from authorized relatives for 20 minutes, through an acrylic barrier, by telephone, and with a guard on either side," the defense attorney specified. The lack of medical transfers has also deteriorated the health of the three former police officers, especially that of Rolando Guevara, whom the courts have denied humanitarian measures since 2011 despite suffering from an obstruction in a coronary artery, chronic arterial hypertension, and a herniated disc affecting several lumbar nerves. Otoniel shows signs of gastritis and has begun to develop hypertension, while Juan Bautista suffers from recurrent digestive ailments. "We imagine it is due to the food and the dirty water they are forced to drink and the unsanitary conditions of the place, since they sleep, eat, and relieve themselves in the same space. Even with a wall in between, it is a cell where they must remain for 23 hours a day," Sandoval warned. Habitual suspects, exclusion from amnesties, and impunity for torture Sandoval reported that over more than two decades, the legal team has presented the case file in all national instances and international forums to seek their release, but the Guevara brothers have been excluded from every list of presidential pardons or releases of political prisoners, and were even vetoed by name by Nicolás Maduro and Diosdado Cabello during the debates on the Amnesty Law in 2016 on the grounds of terrorism. "State representatives have viewed the Guevaras as enemies of the government for 27 years. They have been, and apparently still are, habitual suspects in cases where the government has an interest; even during their transfer from El Helicoide to El Rodeo they were subjected to interrogations over another supposed coup d'état," the lawyer denounced. The judicial process against the Guevaras began after the murder of prosecutor Danilo Anderson in November 2004. In the days following the attack, Juan Bautista, Rolando, and Otoniel were detained by security forces and spent several days disappeared under torture before their capture was formalized. Over the years, the accusation fell apart as the key witnesses promoted by the Prosecutor's Office, Giovanny Vásquez de Armas and Alexis Peñuela, confessed that they had received money from the government to lie, while the trial prosecutor Hernando Contreras and the former TSJ magistrates Luis Velásquez Alvaray and Eladio Aponte Aponte publicly admitted that the case was a political setup in which even the assassination of the detainees was considered. Despite these revelations, the Public Ministry never opened an investigation against the torturers or against those who fabricated the case file. "We have not been informed that the respective investigations ordered by the IACHR Court against the acting officials have been opened, nor have they been called to testify as victims. The hope is that human rights violations have no statute of limitations; let us hope to see justice and to be able to continue working toward it," Sandoval affirmed. Two decades of family fracture, and raising children through photographs When they were detained in November 2004, all the children of Rolando, Otoniel, and Juan Bautista were minors. After more than 21 years of imprisonment, migration divided the family, and today only Jackeline Sandoval and the children she had with Rolando Guevara remain in Venezuela. "From having, in my case, two sources of income, only one remained; from being a prosecutor for the Public Ministry, I had to practice my profession independently. We all became single mothers, our children only saw their parents on visiting days, and Christmas ended at four in the afternoon. Birthdays, graduations, even my eldest son's wedding — all of that comes down to photos we brought for them to see. Thank God my family was always by my side, supporting me in caring for my children," the lawyer concluded.