The Venezuelan justice began, Friday, May 14, the seizure of the headquarters of the newspaper El Nacional, criticism of the Maduro government, to cover the $ 13 million in damages that a court ordered him to pay to a senior Chavist official, following a libel lawsuit.
“At this very moment, a judge surrounded by national guards entered the building of El Nacional to seize everything”, tweeted newspaper editor Miguel Henrique Otero.
Nicolás Maduro’s dictadura embargó la sede del periódico venezolano El Nacional – Infobae https://t.co/36L9f82IUl
In April, the Venezuelan justice ordered the daily to pay $ 13.4 million for causing a “Serious moral damage” to Diosdado Cabello, one of the main figures of Chavist power, deputy and number two of the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV). “(…) The compensation payment process has started”, congratulated Mr. Cabello on Twitter.
Complaint by Diosdado Cabello
This conviction is the judicial follow-up to a complaint filed in 2015 by Diosdado Cabello against El Nacional following the reproduction of an article in the Spanish newspaper ABC which linked him to drug trafficking. At the same time, he lodged a complaint against ABC in Spain and the Wall Street Journal in the USA. Both of these complaints were dismissed.
El Nacional, an emblematic newspaper founded in 1943 by the Venezuelan writer Miguel Otero Silva, ceased to circulate in print edition in December 2018, after 75 years of history, including two decades of opposition to the government of Hugo Chavez (1999-2013) and his successor Nicolas Maduro.
The government of Nicolas Maduro accuses certain media of serving the plots of the opposition to overthrow him. More than a hundred media have closed since the coming to power of Mr. Maduro, denounces the NGO Espacio Publico.