Venezuelan lawmaker Fernando Alban has died while in detention, the government said Monday, although the reasons for his death remain contested.



The regime said Alban, who was jailed last Friday, had committed suicide by jumping from the 10th floor of the state intelligence agency headquarters (SEBIN) where he was incarcerated.

"At the moment he was going to be transported to court, while he was in the SEBIN waiting room, he jumped from the window of the building and fell, causing his death," Venezuelan Interior Minister Nestor Reverol said in a post on Twitter.

Reverol's account, however, differed from that offered by Venezuela's Chief Prosecutor Tarek William Saab, who said in a televised interview that Alban had asked to use a bathroom and subsequently jumped from the window.

The Venezuelan opposition, the Justice First party, of which Alban was a member, insisted that the councilman was killed and that the regime of President Nicolas Maduro was responsible.



"With great pain and thirst for justice we tell the people of Venezuela ... that Councilman Fernando Alban was murdered at the hands of the regime of Nicolas Maduro," the opposition said.

Alban is alleged to have jumped to his death from the 10th floor of the SEBIN headquarters

According to the opposition party's coordinator Julio Borges, Alban's lifeless body was then thrown from the SEBIN's headquarters, located on Caracas' Plaza Venezuela. Borges added that Alban was a devout Catholic and family man who would never consider killing himself.

The Organization of American States (OAS), a group of Western hemisphere countries, has condemned Alban's death. "Direct responsibility of a regime that tortures and murders. This criminal dictatorship must go now from Venezuela," OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro wrote on Twitter.

Alban's disputed crimes

The Venezuelan government and the opposition have also disputed the reasons behind Alban's arrest.

The regime has claimed the lawmaker was detained on suspicion of involvement in the failed assassination attempt on Maduro in early August using two exploding drones.

The opposition, meanwhile, said Alban's arrest was owing to statements he made at the United Nations General Assembly in New York last month in which he denounced human right violations in Venezuela.

Read more: How Venezuela gets plundered

Rights groups have accused the Maduro regime of intentionally stifling dissent by incarcerating hundreds of political opponents on trumped-up charges. A UN report found that political detainees are often subjected to mistreatment, including some documented cases of torture.

Venezuela, once a wealthy oil-producing nation, has been struggling for years from an unrelenting rise in inflation, shortages of food and medicine and declining oil production. Some 1.9 million Venezuelans have fled the country since 2015, according to United Nations figures.

The perilous flight out of Venezuela Iconic image Each day 30,000 to 40,000 people cross the 315-meter-long (1,000-foot-long) Simon Bolivar bridge (pictured) between Venezuela and Colombia. Since September 2015 some 20 million Venezuelans have crossed into the neighboring Colombian province of Norte de Santander, says its governor William Villamizar. At the same time, he adds, 17 million individuals have been registered as entering Venezuela.

The perilous flight out of Venezuela Shopping over the border Most Venezuelans come to Colombia to stock up on basic food stuff and medicine. It is cheaper there than in their own country, where inflation has spiraled out of control and made the Bolivar, Venezuela's currency, nearly worthless. Some 3 million citizens are thought to have permanently migrated to Colombia.

The perilous flight out of Venezuela Refugiados welcome? Colombians initially welcomed fleeing Venezuelans with open arms, just like Germans welcomed refugees in summer 2015. But now, experts say, the mood has shifted. Many have begun demanding the government provide less financial support to refugees and instead invest more in helping ordinary Colombians. However, aid for refugees is still provided in reception centers (above).

The perilous flight out of Venezuela Heading south According to official figures, approximately 1 million Venezuelan nationals currently reside in Colombia. Given that a total of 3 million Venezuelans crossed into Colombia, about 2 million must have traveled onward. In the first half of 2018 alone, over 500,000 of them migrated to Colombia's southern neighbor Ecuador.

The perilous flight out of Venezuela Stopover in Ecuador Ecuadorian authorities estimate that only 20 percent of Venezuelan nationals who arrived in the country in 2018 permanently settled there, like this family living in a makeshift camp near the capital, Quito. Most Venezuelans presumably intend to keep on traveling southward and reach either Peru, Chile or Argentina.

The perilous flight out of Venezuela Hitting the brakes After several days when some 5,000 Venezuelans wanted to cross from Colombia into Ecuador, Quito began demanding that Venezuelan nationals show valid passports to emigrate, rather than just an ID as was previously needed. This new regulation applies to adults. For children, proof of paternity and parental passports is enough to let them cross the border.

The perilous flight out of Venezuela Chain reaction After Ecuador Peru followed suit, announcing it would implement the same regulation in the near future. Peruvian Interior Minister Mauro Medina said that about 80 percent of Venezuelan refugees arrive with valid passports, but many Venezuelan NGOs warn that passports have now become luxury items in the crisis-stricken country, requiring large sums of cash or high-level contacts to acquire one.

The perilous flight out of Venezuela Tension in the air More than 100,000 Venezuelans have migrated to Brazil since 2016, most of them to the country's north. From there, roughly half them travel onward to Ecuador and Peru. The situation in northern Brazil is tense: The country's government has said it will redistribute Venezuelan immigrants to other regions. Critics have accused the government authorities of failing to support Brazil's border region.

The perilous flight out of Venezuela Attacks and confrontations Last weekend, local residents in the Brazilian border town of Pacaraima attacked makeshift camps housing Venezuelan refugees. They set their dwellings on fire and drove hundreds back across the border. Media reports say Brazilian police did nothing to stop the mob violence. The attack was said to be triggered by the robbery of a Brazilian businessman — a crime allegedly committed by refugees. Author: Jan D. Walter



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dm/cmk (AP, Reuters)