The Daily Journal — Gabriel José Quero Navas, acting on behalf of his family, issued a statement on Wednesday, June 3, rejecting the official report that Venezuela’s Public Prosecutor’s Office recently released regarding the investigation into the death of his brother, Víctor Hugo Quero Navas, who died while in state custody approximately one year ago.
The family’s response argues that the statement the agency released on June 2 misrepresents the actual case file currently under review by the 80th National Prosecutor’s Office.
Family Questions Silence on Arrest and Accountability
In the first section of the statement, the family challenges what it describes as the authorities’ deliberate omission of the case’s background.
“The Public Prosecutor’s Office statement dated June 2, 2026, says nothing about the circumstances surrounding the arbitrary arrest of Víctor Hugo Quero Navas, nor about the criminal responsibility of the state security officers who took part in that arbitrary arrest,” the document states.
The family also argues that the official report fails to examine the alleged legal responsibility of officials from the Public Prosecutor’s Office, the Judiciary, and the Public Defender’s Office who “validated that arbitrary arrest, endorsed his permanent state of helplessness, or refused for more than a year to provide information regarding his whereabouts or fate.”
Family Alleges Strategy to Exonerate Officials
The Quero Navas family believes that authorities released the forensic findings prematurely in an effort to undermine the objectivity of the judicial process and shield the chain of command responsible for the death.
“A leak of information from an ongoing investigation that remains in the preparatory phase has clearly occurred. This action revictimizes us, compromises the objectivity and impartiality of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, and may seek—given the serious omissions evident in the official statement—to absolve the long chain of public officials whose actions and omissions allowed Víctor Hugo Quero Navas to die while in custody,” the statement declares.
The family further links the emotional toll of the case to the death of family matriarch Carmen Teresa Navas, who endured “more than a year of cruel and inhuman treatment while unsuccessfully searching for her son, whom authorities kept in a situation of enforced disappearance following his arbitrary arrest in January 2025.”
Medical Examinations Conducted Without Family Oversight
The third section of the complaint details alleged forensic irregularities following the exhumation of Víctor Hugo’s body on May 8 of this year. Family members contend that the Public Prosecutor’s Office blatantly violated confidentiality obligations by publicly disclosing conclusions without allowing independent specialists to review them.
The family describes as “extremely serious” the decision to prevent them from “participating, with the support of independent physicians, in the forensic medical examinations” and from “reviewing and evaluating the conclusions reached by the experts.”
Gabriel José Quero Navas also rejected the publication of those forensic findings without the family’s authorization or participation, arguing that authorities presented them “as though they already constituted final and conclusive results.”
Call for Compliance with the Minnesota Protocol
In the final section of the statement, the victims’ legal representatives demanded an immediate end to any institutional action or omission that could promote impunity for state agents allegedly involved in the events.
To ensure transparency, they formally requested that authorities “conduct all relevant investigations in accordance with existing laws and the standards established by the Minnesota Protocol on the Investigation of Potentially Unlawful Deaths, while respecting victims and upholding ethics, objectivity, impartiality, and transparency.”
