Published at: 10/09/2025 09:00 PM

(CLARÍN, September 10, 1963)

• On September 9, 1963, the young leader Ali José Hernández, 20, was killed with machine gun bursts inside a cell of the General Directorate of Police (DIGEPOL) in Valencia, Edo. Carabobo, while I was sleeping.
• In the application of the death penalty, he was the third prisoner killed in a prison by the government of Rómulo Betancourt (1959-1964).
• Ali José Hernández, as the graphic shows, had his arm and chest plastered, which prevented sufficient mobility to defend himself, let alone attempt to escape or attack his jailers.
• According to the official version, Ali José Hernández was shot while trying to escape. He had been arrested along with five companions while driving through the Olympic Village in Valencia.
• The false official report was denied by El Nacional, in its September 9 edition of that year. This publication disrupted the alleged link between the young man who was shot and the death of a DIGEPOL official, named Juan Michelena, who had been injured days earlier in a shooting that took place in that city.
• A year earlier, the application of the death penalty to detainees in jails and police cells was also practiced with José Gregorio Rodríguez, who was released from a sixth floor of DIGEPOL in the presence of his wife, on May 24, 1962.
• The law student, José Antonio Vázquez La Torre, son of the communist leader Professor Enrique Vásquez Fermín, who was hanged by police officers inside a cell in the Prefecture of El Hatillo, edo. Miranda, on July 16, 1962.
• To prevent the spread of the news of such an infamous murder, the Betancourt government ordered the collection of the 10,000 copies of the Clarín newspaper that day. The only newspaper that, at that time, had the courage to headline the crime on the front page and the details on its central pages.

Mazo News Team