Reporter Poleo sentenced to six months in jail

April 13, 2005

Reporter Patricia Poleo is sentenced to six months in jail
after she was found guilty of defamation of Minister of the Interior
and Justice Jesse Chacon. Chacon sued Poleo over her publication of a
picture of a soldier holding a gun over the dead body of a civilian at
the state’s TV channel.

Let’s examine the charges and the evidence:

Poleo published a picture of an armed soldier over a dead body the day of the November 1992 coup.

-Did Chacon participate in that November 1992 coup? YES

-Was Chacon present at the TV channel where the picture was taken? YES, he was part fo the attacking force.

-Was Chacon armed that day? YES, definitely.

-Did Chacon fire his gun that day at VTV, where innocent civilians were killed? Witnesses say YES!

-Did he kill anyone? Nobody knows, but we don’t know if the man in the picture killed anyone either.

So, the only thing you can accuse Poleo of is of misidentifying Chacon,
the rest is all true! So where is the act of defamation? Saying that
the picture is him, does not affect Chacon’s reputation (which is
what defamation is all about!), what damages his reputation is saying he
was there, he fired agaisnt innocent civilians and may have killed
them. But these are all true!

Of course, the Chavez administration just wants Poleo intimidated and jailed.

This entry was posted on April 13, 2005 at 10:46 pm and is filed under Venezuela.

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