Who are the political prisoners in the Paramacay case with ratified sentences of up to 30 years?

AI-restored image to improve resolution without altering faces, colors, or other elements of the image. Chamber 2 of the Court of Appeals of the Penal Judicial Circuit of the state of Carabobo, presided over by judge Carlos Alberto Bonilla Álvarez and also composed of judges Willi León and Deisy Orasma, upheld the maximum sentence of 30 years in prison against former captain of the Bolivarian National Guard (GNB), Juan Carlos Caguaripano Scott, and 15 other defendants for the assault on the 41st Armored Brigade of Fort Paramacay, which occurred on August 6, 2017, in Valencia. In the same ruling, the court set sentences of 15 and 14 years in prison for four other accused and summoned the defense to the formal sentencing hearing, scheduled for Tuesday, November 17, at 10:00 a.m. Lawyer Juan Luis González Taguaruco, one of the group's main defenders, told Efecto Cocuyo that the legal team had already anticipated an adverse ruling due to the procedural flaws accumulated over more than nine years of trial, although the court still prevents them from reviewing the records to verify the exact terms of the decision. "We assume that a conviction has been handed down. We have not been able to review the case file and, consequently, to know whether the sentence was indeed upheld. We have no reason to doubt that it was," the jurist said. Once the sentencing hearing is held at the Valencia courts, the legal representatives will go to the last available instance within the national jurisdiction to challenge the convictions. "In the event that this sentence has been upheld, we still have the possibility of filing the cassation appeal, which is heard by the Criminal Cassation Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice. We still have tasks to do there," said González Taguaruco. The case file originally groups 23 civilians and military personnel prosecuted for the so-called Operation David, all registered as political prisoners by organizations such as Foro Penal and Justicia, Encuentro y Perdón (JEP). Although several of the civilians maintain that they were arbitrarily detained without any connection to the military uprising, the Prosecutor's Office charged them across the board with treason, military rebellion, theft of property belonging to the Bolivarian National Armed Forces (FANB) and, in various individual case files, assault on a sentry. After the case moved from military courts to ordinary jurisdiction, Carabobo's third trial judge, Luis Francisco Ovalles Landaeta, sentenced the 23 accused to 30 years in prison on December 19, 2025, without individualizing their conduct. That same day, the judge revoked the precautionary measures of six defendants who were at liberty, and months later the administrative transfer of the file from Chamber 1 to Chamber 2 forced the appeal hearing to be repeated on October 28, 2026. With the second-instance decision, only three of the 23 named in the notice received a sentence reduction to three years in prison and were released for time served: Óscar Alejandro Caamaño Valero, Dirimo Antonio Pernía Bastidas, and José Rengifo Galavis, who was already out of prison under a precautionary measure for health reasons. Sentences upheld at 30 years in prison In addition to Captain Juan Carlos Caguaripano Scott, commander of the armed incursion who was held in La Tumba, El Helicoide, and Rodeo I, 15 other defendants retained the maximum sentence after the Court dismissed the defense's appeals. Except for the personnel who remain at the National Center for Military Detainees (Cenapromil) in Ramo Verde, in the state of Miranda, most passed through facilities such as the General Directorate of Military Counterintelligence (Dgcim), Ramo Verde, and the Rodeo II or Rodeo III prisons before arriving at the Valencia National Penitentiary Center, known as Tocuyito. 🔴 Jefferson Gabriel García Dos Ramos: He is a first lieutenant of the Army, a graduate of the Military Academy, who was captured on August 11, 2017, in the same operation in which Caguaripano was detained. He spent 45 days in forced disappearance and was charged with nearly 12 crimes. At the Dgcim headquarters in Boleíta (Caracas), he was subjected to electric shocks, mechanical asphyxiation, beatings, and prolonged hanging by the wrists. He spent several years in Ramo Verde, but in February 2025 he was transferred without notice to Fuerte Guaicaipuro, where he was isolated and without family visits for months. He was then returned to Ramo Verde, where he joined a hunger strike and where he suffers progressive vision loss, frequent nosebleeds, and bleeding hemorrhoids without receiving specialized medical care. 🔴 Oswaldo José Gutiérrez Guevara: First lieutenant of the Army with command training, a native of the state of Yaracuy. Before the uprising, he was in the status of a deserter due to a prior military investigation into an alleged theft of ammunition at the 25th Caribbean Brigade in La Fría, state of Táchira. He was detained on August 6, 2017, itself, inside Fort Paramacay and remained in Ramo Verde until August 2019, when Dgcim officials forcibly removed him to send him to Rodeo II and later to the Tocuyito prison, where he remains imprisoned amid complaints by his defense about the prolonged isolation and cruel treatment he has suffered. 🔴 Darwin Antonio Solís Benítez: A farmer by trade and sergeant first in the Army's active reserve. He was captured on August 6, 2017, by personnel of the National Anti-Extortion and Kidnapping Command (Conas) and handed over to the Dgcim. In May 2026, the director of the Casla Institute, Tamara Suju, published a handwritten letter sent by him from Tocuyito in which he recounted the beatings, electric shocks, pepper spray attacks, and injuries he suffered during his capture, which forced doctors to suture him at Carabobo Hospital before his transfer to Boleíta. 🔴 Cristian Gregorio Estrada Estrada: Army second sergeant from Ejido, state of Mérida, detained by Dgcim commissions in the state of Lara in mid-August 2017. Unlike the defendants sent to civil prisons in Carabobo, he has served more than nine years of imprisonment in Ramo Verde, where human rights defenders denounce that he has been denied access to independent medical evaluations after the mistreatment he received when captured. 🔴 Larry Enrique Briceño Hinestroza: He was working as a taxi driver in Valencia when he was detained on August 6, 2017, near the brigade and included among the first eight captured in the case, even though his family maintains that he had only gone out to work his shift in public transportation and was included in the case file without evidence. He was in Rodeo II and in the El Libertador prison before being sent to Tocuyito. His health condition is critical: he suffers from insulin-dependent type 2 diabetes, chronic kidney failure, recurrent seizures, and severe malnutrition that made him lose more than 60 kilos, which is why he has had to be taken out in emergencies to hospitals in Valencia due to the lack of treatment and adequate food in prison. 🔴 Jorge Enrique Alayeto Bigott: A Spanish-Venezuelan civilian merchant and father of five children. On August 6, 2017, Dgcim officials took him from his home at Hacienda San Luis, in Valencia, without a search warrant, kept him in forced disappearance for 11 days, and tortured him to force him to plead guilty to recording and disseminating a video of the military assault. In his first weeks in Boleíta, he received beatings, threats, and gunshots near his ear that left him with a dislocated clavicle without treatment, chronic pain in his back, arm, and head, as well as kidney and stomach ailments. He remains in Tocuyito; during his time in prison he lost his commercial businesses and his mother died. 🔴 Giullianny Espinoza Ramírez: Holder of a Technical University Degree (TSU) in Banking and Finance Administration, a Caracas merchant, and a former cadet of the Military Academy. He was 26 years old and studying foreign trade when he was detained on August 6, 2017, in the vicinity of the brigade along with the first group of those captured. During the arrest, he was beaten until his face was disfigured and he suffered a serious fracture. Although a court ordered him to be operated on, the penitentiary authorities refused to transfer him to the hospital, so the bone healed badly and left him with permanent physical limitations. He remains imprisoned in Tocuyito. 🔴 Alberto José Polo Díaz: He was detained by the Conas on August 6, 2017, and presented in official reports as a second corporal of the Bolivarian Militia, but human rights activists and former prosecutor Zair Mundaray denounced that he was a civilian whom officials forced to dress in a military uniform before handing him over to the Dgcim to simulate that he participated in the assault. He is imprisoned in the La Mínima annex of Tocuyito. Due to the torture he suffered when captured, he suffers memory loss, frequent nosebleeds, severe migraines, and an injury to his right shoulder that has worsened due to lack of medical attention. 🔴 Robert Antonio Salas Moreno: TSU in Foreign Trade and father of four children. He was detained on August 6, 2017, in the vicinity of Fort Paramacay, presented before a military court on August 10, and is currently imprisoned in Tocuyito. According to Foro Penal's medical records, the torture he suffered at the beginning of his detention caused hernias in his spine, chronic pain in his knees and shoulders, and severe inflammation of the sciatic nerve that prevents him from getting up on his own, a condition for which he has already had to be taken in an emergency to the Military Hospital. 🔴 Gabriel Jesús Barros Romero: A native of Maracaibo, state of Zulia, he was 23 years old and about to graduate with honors in Computer Engineering when he traveled to Valencia to look for academic materials and was detained on August 6, 2017, at a citizen gathering near the fort. Since 2020 he has had precautionary measures from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). In more than nine years he has passed through five detention centers —including one month incommunicado and under torture at the Dgcim in Boleíta— and has accumulated more than 90 transfers to courts while remaining in La Mínima of Tocuyito. 🔴 Juan Ubencio Machado: A farmer detained by the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service (Sebin) on August 27, 2017, in Guatire, state of Miranda, weeks after the uprising. His defense maintains that he was never in Valencia nor had any connection to the attack. He passed through Rodeo II and is now in Tocuyito. Due to the beatings and isolation he faced since his capture, starting in 2020 he began to suffer progressive hearing loss, constant ringing in his ears, kidney stones, insomnia, and anxiety. 🔴 Dixon Javier Jiménez Jiménez: A native of the state of Yaracuy and mentioned by his mother with the rank of captain, he was detained on August 6, 2017, near the armored brigade, although his family asserts that he did not participate in the incursion and does not appear in the videos of the assault. He was in Ramo Verde and Rodeo II before being taken to Tocuyito, and during the trial hearings he denounced the cruel treatment and isolation to which he was subjected. 🔴 Luis Eduardo Mariño Carmona: He was captured in the August 2017 operations and appears in the Ramo Verde records within the group of military personnel prosecuted in this case. He was later sent to Rodeo II and finally to Tocuyito, where he remains without medical attention despite his family's complaints about the deterioration of his health after nine years in prison. 🔴 Víctor Jhoel Cisnero Torrealba: Detained in the August 2017 raids, he has been rotated through at least five prisons and police facilities, including Rodeo II, until ending up imprisoned in Tocuyito, where his lawyers denounce that the authorities restrict his access to medical examinations. 🔴 José Gregorio Sevilla: Also captured in the August 2017 operations, he passed through Rodeo II and remains imprisoned in Tocuyito. During the trial in Valencia, he denounced before the court that he suffers physical and psychological aftereffects from the torture he endured when arrested. Sentences modified to 15 and 14 years in prison In the same second-instance ruling, Chamber 2 of the Court of Appeals reduced the 30-year sentences handed down in December 2025 against four other defendants in the case file. 🔴 Jesús Enrique Jordán Arias: A retired GNB colonel, 68 years old. He was detained on August 13, 2017, and spent eight months in Ramo Verde until in 2018 he received a precautionary measure of periodic presentation, which he complied with for more than seven years until the court revoked the benefit and ordered his recapture in December 2025. The Court of Appeals reduced his sentence to 15 years in prison. He remains at the New Man Training Center El Libertador, in Tocuyito, where his wife and defenders warn that he suffers from pulmonary fibrosis, type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, grade II obesity, and edema in his legs without constant medical care. 🔴 Omar Amable Escalante Rodríguez: A 74-year-old retired teacher and former president of Fetracarabobo. He was arrested by the Sebin in August 2017 and spent almost five months in Ramo Verde before being released under a presentation regime, a measure he complied with without fail for more than eight years until he was detained again on December 19, 2025, when he voluntarily appeared at the Carabobo courts. He was imprisoned in GNB detachments 411 and 24 until March 2026, when he suffered a health crisis from arterial hypertension, diabetes, and kidney failure that forced his emergency hospitalization in Naguanagua; on March 14 he received a humanitarian measure and now Chamber 2 reduced his sentence to 15 years in prison, ratifying that he will continue serving it under house arrest at his home in La Isabelica, in Valencia. 🔴 Rafael Yoxsan González Castellano: Linked to the military sphere, he was detained in August 2017 by the Dgcim and held in Boleíta and Ramo Verde, where torture and forced disappearance were denounced against him. In 2018 he received a precautionary measure with which he was able to work and study law in freedom, but he was recaptured in December 2025 at the Palace of Justice of Carabobo and remains imprisoned in that state after the judges denied him an amnesty and set his sentence at 14 years in prison. 🔴 Juan José Castillo: He was captured in the August 2017 operations and charged with military rebellion, treason, assault on a sentry, and theft of property belonging to the FANB. Although in December 2025 he had received the maximum sentence of 30 years, Chamber 2 of the Court of Appeals modified the ruling and reduced his sentence to 14 years in prison.