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Venezuela
Zulia: February 26, 1992-May 27, 1992
Fifteen adults of a Family community in Venezuela were charged with trafficking children and abuse of minors, and placed under house arrest for two months. The case was officially closed on May 27, 1992, when the judge of the Fifth Superior Court of the State of Zulia in the final verdict concluded:
After a detailed and intensive study of the documents that make up this indictment investigation, this Superior Court affirms that all of the necessary procedures have been carried out in accordance with the law, as though there was a crime, when in fact there was no evidence of any crime found after visiting the residence where lived [21 children, members of the Family]. [It] was proved that the aforementioned minors lived with their respective parents in a community constituted by families that chose this particular way of life with their own standard of education, health, work, and social and spiritual ideology inspired in a way of life taken from the New Testament. [This Court] declares this present investigation closed for finding no grounds for prosecution.1
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Footnotes:
1 Fifth Superior Court of the
State of Zulia, Case numbers 133 and 192.