Former US Marine Serves Two Years Imprisoned in Venezuela

The veteran of the United States Navy, Matthew Heath, celebrated this Friday two years of being imprisoned in Venezuela, whose government accuses him of alleged acts of terrorism.

Heath’s case was presented in mid-September 2020 by the Venezuelan Public Ministry together with three other citizens of that country, whom accused of attacking a refinery and the electrical system of the country.

According to relatives of Matthew, he tried to take his own life last June.

“The American citizen, I must emphasize, did not have a passport with him with formal entry into the country. He only had a photocopy of it hidden inside his shoe, ”said the attorney general appointed by the ruling National Constituent Assembly, Tarek William Saab.

This Friday, the US State Department released a release in which he demands, once again, the release of Heath and other Americans imprisoned in that Latin American nation.

“Matthew was arrested in September 2020 on the basis of false charges and the judicial process against him is still ongoing,” indicates the text of the statement, attributed to the spokesman for the foreign affairs entity, Ned Price.

“We continue to call on the Maduro regime to immediately and unconditionally release Matthew and all other US citizens wrongfully detained in Venezuela,” he said.

In June of this year, a delegation from the White House, made up, among other officials, of Rogers Carstens, special presidential envoy for hostage affairs, visited Caracas without a visible result so far.

In the month of March of this year were released Gustavo Cárdenas, one of six Citgo Petroleum executives who had been detained since 2017, and Jorge Alberto Fernández, a Cuban-American tourist, arrested and charged with terrorism for piloting a drone in early 2021.

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