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The prison has been “hell on earth” for six US oil executives swept aside in a bogus corruption case in Venezuela, a brother of two of the men told the Post on Friday, a day after their sentencing.
Already his brothers have been jailed for three years, Alirio Jose Zambrano told The Post, speaking by phone from his home in Mountain Lakes, NJ.
Then came a closed-door trial that began in August and ended on Thursday, with his brothers sentenced to five years.
“Last night on Thanksgiving night at around 6 p.m. our lawyer called and gave us the bad news,” said Zambrano, 47, upon hearing of the conviction of his brothers Alirio Jose, 56, and Jose Luis, 54 years old, both from Houston.
The couple and their colleagues, who work for CITGO, have been behind bars since being summoned to Caracas for a meeting that was eventually stormed by military police.
“The first two years were really hell on earth,” Zambrano said of his brothers’ imprisonment in a military prison, he said, “known for torture and human rights violations.”
A year ago they were briefly allowed to be under house arrest, he said – but they were again taken into custody in February, this time in a prison for political prisoners, where they were. remained at the time of Thursday’s sentencing, he said.
“We really don’t know what they want,” Zambrano said of Nicolas Maduro’s regime.
“Obviously all the charters are in place,” he said. “None of the so-called evidence is related to my brothers,” he said of the case, which accuses the Six of corruption linked to a debt refinancing plan from the oil giant that did not never even happened.
“My brother Alirio was a refinery manager,” Zambrano said.
“My other brother was responsible for human resources and information technology,” he said.
“They put a man who runs a refinery and a human resources manager on trial over a financial transaction they had nothing to do with.”
Zambrano, who also works in the oil industry, and his brothers are naturalized American citizens who immigrated to the United States more than 20 years ago, with their parents, a fourth brother and two sisters, he said. declared.
They all have families; Alirio has three daughters and Jose Luis has two daughters, Zambrano said.
The family will continue an appeal of the conviction and sentencing from Thursday, but fear that only a diplomatic solution will free the brothers.
“What we are assuming is that the regime might want something in return for them,” he said of the six oil executives.
“But definitely, it has nothing to do with justice. All of this is linked to a political game. It is truly heartbreaking.
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