By Nicolás Misculin
BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) – The Clooney Foundation for Justice has accused Venezuelan security forces of crimes against humanity against government opponents since 2014 in a legal complaint filed in Argentina on Wednesday.
The foundation said that for lack of a response from Venezuelan authorities, it filed the complaint in Argentina where universal jurisdiction allows for the investigation and prosecution of war crimes and torture from anywhere in the world.
The complaint was filed on behalf of two families that fell victim to security forces in Venezuela, which since 2013 has been led by President Nicolas Maduro.
The Venezuelan government did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. A spokesperson for the foundation confirmed the complaint was filed with 15,000 pages of evidence.
“We are talking about arbitrary detentions, torture, extrajudicial executions,” said Ignacio Jovtis, a lawyer for the Clooney Foundation. The lawyer said he preferred not to disclose details of the complaint for legal and security reasons.
The Clooney Foundation for Justice was founded by actor George Clooney and his wife, human rights lawyer Amal Clooney.
“These are not isolated cases. The cases we are presenting are illustrative of ones that we have been documenting for years,” Jovtis said.
The International Criminal Court in The Hague is investigating alleged Venezuelan human rights violations. An independent mission of the United Nations has accused the Maduro government of crimes against humanity.
The Argentine justice system has previously agreed to investigate alleged crimes against humanity carried out in Spain and Myanmar in the past, which prompted the Clooney Foundation to file the complaint in Buenos Aires.
“Argentina is one of the few countries in the world that has applied universal jurisdiction. We believe that we have a very strong case,” Jovtis said.
(This June 14 story has been corrected to clarify that the Clooney Foundation filed a legal complaint against security forces and not a lawsuit against Venezuela, in the headline and paragraph 1)
(Reporting by Nicolas Misculin; Writing by Steven Grattan; Editing by Howard Goller)
