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Ecoley

Venezuelan police charged in killings


    Caracas, Mar 3 (EFE).- Eight police officers and a civilian have been charged in connection with the killings of two people in the northwestern state of Zulia, the Venezuelan Attorney General's office said Tuesday.

    "The preliminary investigation" has established that the victims "were intercepted" on Feb. 16 by state police when they arrived in Zulia from the neighboring state of Merida, the AG's office said on its Web site.

    Alejandro Garcia Julio, 22, and Jose Daniel Frias Pinto, 20, were found dead on Feb. 17 "in a wooded area among some bushes with several gunshot wounds" the official report said.

    Federal and state prosecutors have charged the chief of the Zulia police, Renzo Humberto Arias, and seven of his officers, as well as civilian Angel Renato Chourio, with the killings.

    All of the suspects were arrested on Feb. 28.

    The AG's office did not mention what the motive for the slayings was or if the Zulia state police is among the departments to be reorganized to get rid of irregularities in accord with the order of the Presidential Commission on Police Reorganization set up on Oct. 24, 2014.

    President Nicolas Maduro gave the commission six months to propose a plan that would end participation in criminal activity by members of Venezuela's 141 federal, state and local law enforcement agencies.

    Commission chairman Freddy Bernal said on Feb. 1 that the "extortion, kidnapping and murder-for-hire mafias have penetrated" a number of the police departments.

    "There is a reality that we don't like, but it exists: corruption has penetrated different municipal, state and national police departments," he said.