They seize the headquarters of the newspaper El Nacional following a request from Chavismo

The Venezuelan justice notified this Friday the executive embargo of the newspaper El Nacional within the framework of the compensation for “moral damage” of more than 13 million dollars ordered by the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ), at the end of ‘a trial of the number two of Chavismo, Diosdado Cabello.

The newspaper’s authorities claim that it is an illegal operation and qualify the judicial decision as “attack on democracy”.

“I report that in the afternoon the competent courts, as part of the process of my claim in El Nacional, executed the measures for the display of posters and the notification of executive embargo and the payment process compensation has started, ”he wrote. Cabello on his Twitter account.

Miguel H. Otero, President and Editor-in-Chief of El Nacional newspaper, reported that the newspaper building was taken. “Warning: at the moment, a judge surrounded by national guards has taken control of the El Nacional building to seize everything,” he wrote on his Twitter account.

Jorge Makriniotis, managing director of El Nacional, also criticized the operation. “Today we are witnessing another illegal and unfair process, another attack on Nacional. Almost 78 years of stories bringing real information to the country,” he noted.

Then, he underlined the seriousness of the operation: “Democracy lives when there is freedom of expression. Today, they seize us, they take away our property for alleged damage. It’s completely illegal. It is an attack on democracy. “

The Chavista request

Diosdado Cabello had announced on Wednesday that he would “execute” the assets of the newspaper El Nacional if he did not pay him the compensation for “moral damage” of more than 13 million dollars ordered by the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) .

“If you do not pay in cash, we have to execute the assets to compensate for the damage because I have morals,” said the deputy during his weekly program “With the mazo giving”, broadcast by the state channel Venezolana de Televisión. (VTV).

He also stressed that “the courts have already ruled” and expressed the hope that the payment of compensation “can be executed quickly”.

The sentence was published on April 16 and in it the Supreme Court dictates that the Venezuelan newspaper must pay 237,000 petros to Cabelloa cryptocurrencyone launched by Nicolás Maduro in 2018 and which is sanctioned by the United States – at the exchange value of the day.

The Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV) established that day that a petro was being traded for US $ 56.41, so the amount El Nacional would have to pay Cabello would be US $ 13,369,170.

Cabello, a member of the Venezuelan parliament, sued El Nacional in August 2015, after the newspaper reproduced a report from the Spanish newspaper ABC, which indicated that the leader of Chavista was under investigation by the United States for allegations links to drug trafficking.

El Nacional called the decision “political persecution” and warned that Cabello “intends to carry out a disguised expropriation whereby he would become the owner and editor-in-chief of this historical media”.

The board of directors of the Inter-American Press Association (IAPA) on Tuesday expressed its solidarity with the newspaper’s editor in the face of what he defined as the “plunder” of the media which has only one digital version.

With agency information