139. Lastly, on May 9, 2006, the Twenty-fifth Judge ordered a verification of “the migratory movements of [Mr.] Brewer Carías,” 162 because he considered that “in view of the results of the notices served on [Mr.] Brewer Carías by the Clerk of the Court’s Office, it was pertinent to make the following observations: […] A logical deductive inference from the results of the efforts to serve notice to [Mr.] Brewer Carías, lead this court to consider, reasonably, that there is uncertainty as regards his presence in the country, and this would indicate the impossibility of his appearing in person at the preliminary hearing. This is a reasonable consideration of this judge based on the results of the notifications carried out on reiterated occasions. This situation would negate the right of the other accused to obtain promptly from the jurisdictional organs the decisions that must be taken at the preliminary hearing during this intermediate stage” (underlining added). Based on the foregoing, the Twenty-fifth Judge also decided to postpone the hearing until June 20, 2006. 140. On May 10, 2006, the defense counsel of Mr. Brewer Carías advised the Twenty-fifth Judge that Mr. Brewer would not return to the country because he considered that: 163 (i) “the actions of the Public Prosecution Service in this case had clearly constituted official political persecution against him”; (ii) the Prosecutor General himself […] ha[d] directly violated his guarantee of the presumption of innocence, by publicly condemning him in advance of a trial, with the publication of the book ‘Abril comienza en octubre’”; (iii) “in response to the opportune appeal filed before the court, he had only obtained negative responses [and] these negative and frequently delayed responses from the jurisdictional organ ha[d], in turn, constituted new violations of his constitutional guarantees”; (iv) “his right to obtain the dismissal of the case in the intermediate stage of the proceedings had been curtailed”; (v) all of this represented the denial of accessible, impartial, appropriate, transparent, autonomous, independent, responsible, equitable and expedite justice,” and (vi) the indictment was, in itself, already a sentence designed to punish his political and ideological criticism of the project intended to subjugate Venezuela.” 141. Lastly, he stated that: “Faced with these two situations; on the one hand the systematic and massive violation of his constitutional guarantees and rights of defense, access to the evidence, equality between the parties, the presumption of innocence, the ordinary judge, effective judicial protection, to stand trial as a free man, in sum, of due process of law and, on the other hand, that […] Columbia University has offered him the opportunity to realize a long-standing professional goal, which is to become one of its professors, he had taken the decision to wait until conditions are appropriate to obtain an impartial trial that respects his judicial guarantees, [and he therefore advised the court] so that it could take the decision it considered appropriate and continue the proceedings in order not to cause any delay or prejudice to the other defendants.” 142. Following this, on June 15, 2006, the Twenty-fifth Court issued the arrest warrant against Mr. Brewer Carías. As of that time, the hearing was again postponed on thirteen occasions. 164 And, on those occasions, only once was Mr. Brewer mentioned explicitly; 162 Ruling of the Twenty-fifth Court of May 9, 2006 (file of annexes to the answering brief, annex 1, exhibit 19, folios 17305 to 17307). 163 Brief of the defense of May 10, 2006 (file of annexes to the answering brief, annex 1, exhibit 19, folios 17320 to 17322). 164 Record of the Twenty-fifth Court of June 20, 2006 (file of annexes to the answering brief, annex 1, exhibit 20, folio 17435); Record of the Twenty-fifth Court of July 27, 2006 (file of annexes to the answering brief, annex 1, exhibit 20, folio 17586); Record of the Twenty-fifth Court of September 18, 2006 (file of annexes to the answering brief, annex 1, exhibit 20, folio 17711); Record of the Twenty-fifth Court of November 7, 2006 (file of annexes to the answering brief, annex 1, exhibit 20, folio 17914); Record of the Twenty-fifth Court of December 13, 2006 (file of annexes to the answering brief, annex 1, exhibit 21, folio 17982); Record of the Twenty-fifth Court of January 25, 2007 (file of annexes to the answering brief, annex 1, exhibit 21, folio 18174); Record of the Twenty-fifth 45

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