Chavez opponent to be tried in Caracas

[Judi Lynn]

Chavez opponent to be tried in Caracas
Web posted at: 3/25/2009 6:51:17
Source ::: AP

CARACAS: The trial of a top opposition leader will be held in Caracas instead of his home city, Venezuela’s Supreme Court announced yesterday, a move aimed at stacking the odds against him.

The court said that it agreed to a prosecutor’s request to move the trial from Maracaibo to the capital to ensure “the security of all the parties involved” and because it is a serious case that has caused a “public scandal.”

Manuel Rosales, who was President Hugo Chavez’s top opponent in the 2006 presidential election, faces a charge of illegal enrichment. He maintains he is innocent and accuses prosecutors of attempting a “political lynching ordered by Chavez.” The president vowed last year “to make Manuel Rosales a prisoner,” though he denies influencing the legal process. Rosales, who is the mayor of Maracaibo, the country’s second largest city, said on Monday as he left a court in Maracaibo that moving the trial is a “political plan” that violates his rights. He has also said he suspects it’s an effort to “search for a judge who’s obedient.” Four judges in the western state of Zulia, meanwhile, have been suspended from their duties by the Supreme Court after meeting with Rosales.

Pro-Chavez lawmaker Calixto Ortega said on state television yesterday that such contacts must be fully investigated, alleging that one of those judges could have been in a position to influence the case if it had remained in Zulia state. Prosecutors say Rosales failed to show the legal source of about $68,000 in income several years ago while he was Zulia state governor. Rosales says he reported the money and that it came from his involvement in the agriculture business.

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