Published at: 22/10/2025 09:00 PM

(WHAT's going on in Venezuela? , March 18, 1966)

• 60 years ago, the professor and leader of the Communist Party of Venezuela, Alberto Lovera, was kidnapped by agents of the General Directorate of Police (DIGEPOL) in the Plaza de las Tres Graces near the Central University of Venezuela (UCV).
• Nine days later, on October 27, 1965, the teacher's chained body was found dragged through the nets of a fisherman. This happened on a beach called El Morro de Barcelona, near Lecherías, in Puerto La Cruz, Anzoátegui state.
• Forensic expertise showed that it was at the headquarters of the General Police Directorate (DIGEPOL) that Alberto Lovera was subjected to barbaric torture. There, his vertebrae were broken, his hands were cut off and part of his body was mutilated. Finally, his body was thrown, with a beak stuck to his chest, into the depths of the sea.
• To hide the truth, the Leoni government did everything possible to cover up the material and intellectual authors of the crime. Among them, the then Minister of Internal Relations, Gonzalo Barrios, and the tormentors J.J. Patiño, Carlos Vegas, Alberto Ochoa, José R. Antunez and Carlos Quintero.
• Deputy José Vicente Rangel, in a 44-page report, presented irrefutable evidence about the government's responsibility for this murder, which was documented in his book “The Black File”.
• The actions of Rangel and María del Mar Álvarez de Lovera, the teacher's widow, not only served to set a precedent in the fight to clarify the crime, but also to release some witnesses and political prisoners who were arbitrarily detained in the Las Brisas Building, Los Chaguaramos Urbanization in Caracas, headquarters of the State political police.
• Rangel denounced the system of torture, disappearances and murders established from the headquarters of DIGEPOL, whose responsibility fell on the government.
• A year after this abominable crime, it was already known who were guilty. However, at the hands of the Technical Judicial Police (PTJ), the file was “roulette” between the Judge of the Second Criminal Court of First Instance of Barcelona, edo. Anzoátegui, led by Dávila Varone and Cumare Navas, Criminal Judge of the Judicial District of the Federal District of Caracas, in whose court he was paralyzed for several years.

Mazo News Team