Venezuela has issued an arrest warrant against Carla Angola, 46, a journalist critical of the government of dictator Nicolás Maduro who lives in Miami, for “apology for magnicide”, Attorney General Tarek William Saab said on Thursday (4). ).
“The Public Ministry requested the arrest warrant against this lady for the alleged commission of the crime of apology for the crime of magnicide,” Saab said. “She instigated the assassination of the President of the Republic.”
The action against Angola was opened after the broadcast, on Monday (1st), of the opinion program she presents on EVTV, with programming aimed at Venezuelan migrants in the United States.
“The United States sends a drone and disappears with this man,” Angola said, referring to the death of al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri on Saturday in Kabul (Afghanistan).
“Why don’t they do the same with Maduro? And here we’re obviously not apologizing for his murder, but it’s a valid question,” the journalist commented to an interviewee.
“She said it like it was a joke,” criticized Saab. “This is purely and simply an apology for the crime of magnicide.”
The journalist reacted to the arrest warrant, which she called an “exercise of state terrorism on the part of the Maduro regime and its prosecutor”.
Before migrating to the United States, Angola hosted an opinion show on the news channel Globovisión, which was a trench for the government’s opposition until its sale in 2013 to a businessman close to Chavismo. After the change of command in the group, Angola and other journalists resigned.
Venezuela has one of the worst international levels of press freedom, in a context of high self-censorship to avoid administrative sanctions that could lead to the closure of the remaining private vehicles.
RCTV, an emblematic television station that criticizes Chavismo, closed in 2007 after having the extension of its concession rejected.
The group that owns Últimas Noticias, the country’s largest circulation newspaper, was sold in 2013, and the centenary newspaper El Universal a year later. Both softened the editorial line after the change of ownership.
Saab also announced an investigation against Carla Angola’s husband over a dispute over ownership of a property in Caracas.
