Former Venezuelan Supreme Court Justice Christian Zerpa has fled to the United States. He denounced the second term of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
Former Venezuelan Supreme Court Justice Christian Zerpa has fled to the United States. He denounced the second term of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’ who will be inaugurated this week, and told a Miami broadcaster on Jan. 6 he is willing to cooperate with U. S. authorities.
Zerpa’s defection from the South American nation in crisis comes amid growing international pressure on Maduro over his new term due to countries around the world dismissing a broadly boycotted 2018 election vote as a sham.
“I’ve decided to leave Venezuela to disavow the government of Nicolas Maduro,” Zerpa said in an interview with EVTV, which is broadcast on cable and the internet. “I believe [Maduro] does not deserve a second chance because the election he supposedly won was not free and competitive.”
He also said he did not want to “continue to endorse… a government that has only brought hunger, misery, and destruction.”
Venezuela’s Supreme Court confirmed in a statement Zerpa had fled, referring to him as a former magistrate and saying it had commenced an investigation into his professional conduct in November after allegations of sexual harassment involving women in his office. The court’s leadership recommended he be dismissed over the allegations, it said.
For many years Zerpa was an ally of Maduro on the Supreme Court, which backed the ruling Socialist Party in every major legal dispute since Maduro’s 2013 election.
