In Venezuela’s El Rodeo I prison, the same prison where Italian Alberto Trentini was held for more than a year, new reports of torture, forced isolation and inhumane conditions are emerging. Our aid worker was arrested on 15 November 2024 while working for the NGO Humanity & Inclusion and, since then, he has been a hostage of de facto president Nicolás Maduro, without knowing what he is accused of or having access to his lawyers.
The day before yesterday, families of political prisoners staged a protest in front of the Attorney General’s Office in Caracas, condemning the systematic abuse in the Trentini prison with a series of detailed testimonies. It starts with Hiowanka Ávila Rivas, the sister of a convict sentenced to 30 years, according to whom at Rodeo the four convicts were left naked for 21 days, handcuffed 24 hours a day and food was reduced to a minimum. In addition, for weeks in prisons that also house minors and sick people over seventy years old, visits and deliveries of food and medicine were prohibited, in clear violation of international conventions. Local NGOs condemned the “flagrant violations” and requested the inclusion of independent observers into Rodeo I while the geopolitical scenario was also not in play.
According to the New York Times, US President Donald Trump has approved plans for a covert CIA operation in Venezuela that could pave the way for a broader military campaign, without specifying what actions would be authorized or when they would be implemented. At the same time, the White House will reactivate negotiation channels that have even led Maduro to raise the possibility of stepping down within a few years. All the revelations from the newspapers were already written a month ago that Trump had given the “green light” to the CIA.
But what is most striking in Italy is the silence on the case of Trentini whose odyssey, apart from several articles warning of his arrest, has remained invisible for more than a year. A clear contrast when compared with the mobilization of journalist Cecilia Sala, who was arrested in Iran and turned into a symbol of press freedom. For the front page, VIP, hashtag and appeal.
For Trentini, hostage to a dictatorship in which parts of the Italian left and the 5 Stars maintain an inexplicable predilection except for zero or almost zero ideology and anti-Americanism, apart from criticism of the Meloni government. Meanwhile, El Rodeo I, where Trentini served his prison sentence as an innocent man, continues to be a human rights black hole, one of the worst penitentiaries in South America.
