He was accused of sexual abuse, psychological violence and threats against a woman he kidnapped in Maracay, Venezuela, in 1988. In 2020, she managed to escape.
Thirty-one years of psychological and physical violence are being investigated in a Venezuelan court. A man was sentenced on Wednesday to 17 years and two months in prison for holding a woman captive for 30 years in Maracay, Venezuela, before she managed to escape, El Diario and Cronica Uno.
The now 58-year-old was tried for “sexual abuse”, “psychological violence” and “threatening”. He had kidnapped Morella Lopez in 1988 at the age of 17 and held him captive for 31 years.
On January 24, 2020, she manages to escape from the condominium where she is imprisoned, taking advantage of a day when her executioner forgot the keys in the apartment. She goes to a women’s institute and denounces the actions of her kidnapper. Accompanied, she filed a complaint against him for “kidnapping”.
Other kidnappings
The man, unaware that she has already filed a complaint against him, reports the disappearance of his prisoner to the authorities. He was then arrested.
The affair had major repercussions in Venezuela and Latin America. People close to the suspect confirmed the facts and said they had not spoken for years for fear of reprisals.
In the course of the investigation, the authorities also discover that the man did not stop at this kidnapping: he is involved in other kidnappings and has held several other women captive in different apartments within the same residence. One of them remained detained for 24 years.
“Justice Has Been Done”
In various interviews, as well as in court, Morella Lopez said that the man did not live with her, but that he visited her in order to feed her and to use force to obtain sexual relations. All of the prisoner’s attempts to escape had been violently suppressed.
According to Cronica Uno, the defendant was ultimately found guilty of sexual abuse, psychological violence and threats, but not sexual slavery, an allegation for which he was also tried but which the jury found not sufficiently specified.
“Despite all the exhaustion, even if it seems unfair because he only locked me up half as many times, justice has been done,” the victim told our colleagues.