I want to begin closing this series with one of the gravest individual acts documented across the entire report of the UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Venezuela. I saved it for the end intentionally: after six articles (five in the English-language series) unpacking patterns, structures, and institutional command responsibilities, it must be unmistakably clear that behind every systematic pattern are real, concrete human beings whose bodies endured this brutality, and who continue to live with the physical and psychological aftermath of what was done to them while under state custody.
It is equivalent to what female political prisoners endured when they were tortured and forced to abort, or when they were subjected to forms of sexual slavery and exploitation by their custodians, as highlighted in the 2025 report. These are traumas whose consequences can last a lifetime.
The victim was HIV-negative prior to entering detention. Four weeks later, he tested positive.
Some of those affected over the years did not survive. Others have never been able to recount what happened to them. The vast majority still lack the comprehensive medical and psychological support required to process what they endured. Years will pass, and testimonies will continue to surface. Yet documenting brutality in real time, as the UN Mission does, helps accelerate change and builds trust with other individuals who may step forward to testify. That is why we conclude with this case.
Facts as documented by the Mission
Between August and September 2024, a gay individual was detained at Tocuyito, a penitentiary center located in Carabobo state. According to testimony provided directly to the Mission, a commanding officer stripped the victim naked and subjected him to an anal rape lasting approximately 25 minutes. Throughout the assault, the victim was repeatedly beaten and subjected to feminizing insults—slurs deliberately weaponizing his sexual orientation to inflict additional humiliation. A female official recorded the assault on video, in the direct presence of other guards who made no attempt to intervene. Every single person present shares direct responsibility for what took place, as does the entire chain of command above them.
During the rape, the commander told the victim that he was going to transmit HIV to him. This was neither an empty threat made in the heat of the moment nor casual intimidation meant merely to terrorize; it was deliberate, and it was carried out. The victim was HIV-negative before entering detention. Four weeks later, he tested positive.
When penetration does occur, the behavior falls under a dual classification: it constitutes sexual violence and torture simultaneously.
The Mission does not specify in this paragraph whether there was subsequent medical follow-up, an official criminal investigation, or whether the victim ever obtained antiretroviral treatment while remaining under the custody of the very state that infected him. That silence (in a report that routinely details with meticulous precision every institutional step attempted by victims or their families) is profoundly revealing in its own right.
We are confronting state crimes marked by atrocious violence, occurring in an environment that remains actively dangerous for victims, human rights defenders, and anyone working to prevent oblivion and impunity. The overriding priority must be to keep vulnerable individuals protected, while fiercely safeguarding the mechanisms that uphold human rights documentation.
The sexual violence and torture categories
The legal framework matters because it enables acts like this to be prosecuted in court one day. The Mission notes in the introduction to this section that sexual violence does not legally require penetration to be classified as such; forced nudity, groping, or explicit threats of rape also constitute sexual violence. However, when penetration does occur (and when it meets the criteria established under the UN Convention against Torture: an act committed by a public official, intentionally inflicting severe pain or suffering, for the purpose of punishment, humiliation, or discrimination) the behavior falls under a dual classification. It constitutes sexual violence and torture simultaneously.
In Argentina, federal courts continue to pursue Venezuelan perpetrators, citing the Mission’s findings to request extraditions.
Here lies a critical dimension that connects directly to the broader framework on discriminatory motives: the feminizing insults hurled at the victim were not an incidental detail of the assault. Under international human rights law, when torture is aggravated or specifically targeted based on the victim’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or political activity, it heightens the legal culpability of the direct perpetrators and the entire command structure. It is never treated as a mere insult; it is an aggravating factor of state torture.
From the Hague to regional courts
This case does not exist in a vacuum, nor does the work of the UN Fact-Finding Mission. Documenting these atrocities serves a concrete, operational purpose: feeding international judicial mechanisms that continue to advance in parallel when domestic avenues remain entirely sealed.
At the international level, the International Criminal Court has maintained its active investigation, known as Venezuela I, since 2021, formally authorized by Pre-Trial Chamber judges in 2023. While the Venezuelan state notified its intent to withdraw from the Rome Statute in July, that withdrawal does not take effect until July 24, 2027. Under international law, withdrawal does not erase crimes committed during the treaty’s validity, nor does it relieve the state of its legal obligation to cooperate, let alone insulate perpetrators from future arrest warrants. The Mission has consistently supplied substantive material to the ICC, anchoring the only active situation of its kind in the Western Hemisphere.
Concurrently, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights has reasserted its jurisdictional relevance. After Venezuela denounced the American Convention in 2012, its direct contentious jurisdiction over new events appeared curtailed. Yet that deadlock has shifted: hearings on post-2013 human rights violations have proceeded even in the state’s absence, producing formal records and setting the stage for enforceable rulings.
Total truth requires the input of regime insiders who possess orders, logs, and structural command details.
Beyond specialized tribunals, universal jurisdiction has gained meaningful traction. In Argentina, federal courts continue to pursue Venezuelan perpetrators, citing the Mission’s findings to request international extraditions for crimes committed during street protests. In Chile, the judicial system is prosecuting the February 2024 cross-border abduction and assassination of former Venezuelan lieutenant and dissident Ronald Ojeda. The Chilean prosecutor’s office has publicly tied Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello (a central figure across UN command-responsibility reports) to the operation, transferring crucial findings directly to the ICC. The pieces of international justice, moving across different jurisdictions and borders, inevitably intersect.
The UN Mission specifically recommends creating an independent mechanism to preserve archives, medical files, and chain-of-custody evidence for future truth and reconciliation proceedings inside Venezuela. Transitional justice does not begin the day a political transition occurs; it begins now, with the meticulous preservation of evidence that domestic courts can one day use to indict perpetrators and award reparations.
For this machinery to work, a dual call to action is paramount.
First, to the victims and their families: breaking the silence under authoritarian rule carries immense personal risk, but every testimony delivered to international bodies and foreign courts dismantles the regime’s apparatus of denial. No account is too small, and no testimony arrives too late.
Second, to insiders within the repressive machinery: custodians, rank-and-file officers, and forensic doctors coerced into signing fraudulent medical reports. Historical transitions demonstrate that total truth never comes solely from the testimonies of survivors; it requires insiders who possess orders, logs, and structural command details. The documentation compiled by the UN is a detailed portrait of a repressive architecture that remains active. Ensuring that portrait eventually serves as an indictment in a court of law requires witnesses willing to break ranks.
