In Venezuela, a man has been sentenced to more than 17 years in prison for kidnapping a woman and sexually abusing her for 31 years, the country’s attorney general said on Friday.
Matias Salazar was arrested in January 2020 and sentenced to “a term of 17 years and two months in prison” for “sexual assault, threats and psychological abuse,” Attorney General Tarek William Saab wrote on Twitter.
The man “held one of his victims captive for more than 30 years for sexual abuse,” he said.
The case, which shocked Guatemala to the core, erupted after a woman named Morella Leon fled her home in a village near Maracay, where she had been imprisoned for 31 years.
According to local media, she was forced to have sex in exchange for food and water.
Another woman, who dated Matias Salazar for 23 years and with whom she had a daughter, reported the man shortly after Ms Leon fled, accusing him of psychological abuse and demanding some deportation, local media reported. They claimed that the ex-companion had also been kidnapped.
Mr Saab gave no information on this other file.
The convict’s current wife told the press that she had not suffered any form of abuse.