Venezuela’s acting president announced on Friday a proposal for mass amnesty in the country, in her latest major reform since the US toppling of Nicolas Maduro just weeks ago.
Delcy Rodriguez, in a speech at the Venezuelan Supreme Court attended by top government officials, said she will propose a “general amnesty law covering the entire period of political violence from 1999 to the present.”
Leftist revolutionary Hugo Chavez assumed the presidency in 1999, and was succeeded upon his death in 2013 by Maduro, who oversaw an increasingly authoritarian government and whose two re-elections were widely dismissed as fraudulent.
“This law will serve to heal the wounds left by political confrontation, fueled by violence and extremism. It will allow us to put justice back on track in our country,” Rodriguez said, also announcing a “major national consultation for a new judicial system.”
She also announced plans to close the notorious El Helicoide prison in Caracas, where rights groups say political prisoners were tortured by Maduro’s intelligence services.
The massive facility, originally built as a shopping mall, will be turned into a “sports, cultural and commercial center for police families and neighboring communities,” Rodriguez said.
A mother interviewed by AFP near El Helicoide was overjoyed that her son, imprisoned inside, may soon be released under the law.
