1-03-08, 2:40 pm

Caracas, Jan 3 (Prensa Latina) The victims of the 2002 coup d'etat in Venezuela backed an amnesty decreed by President Hugo Chávez for crimes linked to that event, amid criticisms by the opposition, which proposes to expand that measure.

Representatives of the Association of Coup d'Etat Victims said that the defense attorneys for 11 Metropolitan Police officers accused of crimes against humanity have used criticism as a strategy.

Yesenia Fuentes and Attorney Antonio Molina told the radio station YVKE Mundial that the ex-police officers were not excluded from the amnesty, but they cannot benefit from the measure, because they were accused of crimes against humanity and human rights violations.

They recalled that the amnesty does not benefit those who committed crimes against humanity, human rights violations or who did not surrender to the competent courts.

Molina added that Chiefs Lazaro Forero, Henry Vivas and Ivan Simonovich, and the other members of the Metropolitan Police shot at people unjustifiably.

The sources recalled that on April 11, 2002, a group of officers from the Metropolitan Police shot their rifles and submachine guns at President Hugo Chávez's supporters who were demonstrating on Baralt Avenue and Puente Llaguno, near the Presidential Palace.

Molina explained that after the defense attorneys presented an appeal on the grounds of unconstitutionality on April 13, 2007, the Constitutional Courtroom of the Supreme Court of Justice ruled that the police officers could not benefit from the amnesty.

In no case, the decree can favor them, because the crimes they committed attempted against people, including serious violations of human rights such as the right to life, he added.

'The Venezuelan State cannot, under any concept, grant any kind of benefits to these people because that would lead to impunity,' he pointed out.

From Prensa Latina