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The family of the late Venezuelan opposition councilman Fernando Albán, who was assassinated on October 8, 2018, while imprisoned in Caracas, Venezuela, sued Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro, an illegitimate Venezuelan law enforcement agency, and the Colombian guerrilla group FARC in Miami for “damages,” according to court documents.
The civil lawsuit is based on the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, which has been successfully used to prosecute major organized crime figures.
Among those sued by Meudy Albán Osio, the widow of the Primero Justicia councilman, and her children María Fernanda and Fernando Albán Osio, are the illegitimate Minister of Defense, Vladimir Padrino López, the illegitimate President of the Supreme Court of Justice, Maikel Moreno, the illegitimate Attorney General, Tarek Saab, and the illegitimate Minister of Electricity and former Minister of Internal Relations, Nestor Reverol.
The plaintiffs accuse all of them of “heading a criminal organization that tortures and murders its enemies.”
Other defendants are the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the Cartel of the Suns, an organization allegedly formed by Venezuelan generals and dedicated to drug trafficking.
The case was assigned to Judge Darrin P. Gayles of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.
The newspaper El Nuevo Herald, the first to report on the lawsuit filed in early March, spoke with the Albán family’s attorney, Jaime Guttman, who said that the court documents speak for themselves and the plaintiffs “have no plans to speak to journalists at this time”.
The civil suit is under the Racketeer Influenced, Corrupt Organizations and Civil Racketeering Act (RICO), which has been used successfully to prosecute major organized crime figures.
Fernando Albán was arrested by the tyranny of Nicolás Maduro and was thrown from a tenth floor of the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service (Sebin) building in Caracas.
Julio Borges, coordinator of the Primero Justicia party, accused the government of Nicolás Maduro of being responsible for a “vile murder” and so did other opposition leaders.
Luisa Ortega Díaz, former Chavista official, who was Venezuela’s attorney general and is now exiled in Colombia, assured that Albán died drowned while being interrogated “because he was being tortured with a bag.”
Back in 2018, Albán had participated in a United Nations session in New York in which he denounced the serious violations of human rights in Venezuela.
