Matthew Heath, a former U.S. Marine jailed under terrorism charges by the Nicolás Maduro regime in Venezuela, has been hospitalized after trying to take his life on Saturday by using a piece of porcelain broken off from a sink to try to cut his veins, persons close to his defense team said.
By Miami Herald – Antonio María Delgado and Michael Wilner
Jun 20, 2022
Heath, who the State Department says has been jailed under “specious” charges, is currently stable after being treated for the wounds on his left arm. “The lesions he inflicted on himself were considerable but he is now out of danger,” a member of his defense team told the Miami Herald.
He is currently under observation at the military hospital in Caracas.
A State Department spokesman confirmed that the U.S. government is monitoring Heath’s condition.
“We are aware of reports that a U.S. citizen was hospitalized in Venezuela,” the spokesman said. “Due to privacy considerations, we have no further comment.”
Trudy Rutherford, Heath’s aunt, said in a statement that the family learned of Heath’s attempted suicide “through private channels – not from our government.”
“Matthew’s life is in imminent danger, and we don’t detect any urgency at all from the White House. We are frustrated with the pattern of ‘deciding not to decide’ at the White House, endless policy reviews, and empty platitudes about his case being a priority,” Rutherford said.
The family has reached out to former New México Gov. Bill Richardson, who now works as a private citizen to help free Americans unjustly detained abroad, to help secure an emergency medical evacuation of Heath, Rutherford said.
“Just last week on a conference call with three senior administration officials, we warned them of our concerns about Matthew’s mental health and physical well-being after nearly 22 months of wrongful detention,” Rutherford said.
LEGAL TEAM SAYS HEATH HAS BEEN TORTURED
“He is currently being subjected to psychological … torture, which can be more devastating to the person than the physical torture,” she said. “And he is overwhelmed by the overall injustice of his case, and the fact that his trial is now at a standstill because the witnesses against him are now refusing to testify.”
They are refusing to testify because Heath has accused some of the witnesses brought against him in court of being the very same Venezuelan intelligence officers that tortured him soon after he was arrested, in an attempt to make him confess to the trumped-up charges, Suju said.
So the new witnesses that the prosecutors want to bring are refusing to show because they fear they will be identified as well.
Heath, 40, was arrested four months after a botched coup in May 2020, launched from Colombia and led in part by a Florida company called Silvercorp USA, an effort that may have been stopped with the help of Venezuelan government infiltrators. Linking these events to Heath, the Maduro regime accuses him of being a spy and a terrorist and claims he was caught in Falcon state carrying weapons and explosives.
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Read More: Miami Herald – Former U.S. Marine jailed in Venezuela attempts suicide, is hospitalized in Caracas
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