Brazilian Expelled from Venezuela Says He Planned Out His Own Arrest in Advance

01/11/2018 - 11h23

Arrested in Venezuela for suspicion of belonging to a criminal organization, Brazilian Jonatan Moisés Diniz said on Wednesday (the 10th) that he had planned out in advance to be captured by the regime of Nicolás Maduro.

In a video recording released by the NGO Time to Change the Earth in Balneário Camboriú (Santa Catarina State), the 31-year-old from the State of Rio Grande do Sul confirmed that it was his intention to call attention to the work done by the entity.

"It wasn't an act of desperation. I came face to face with powerful people from that country, people related to the regime. This was exactly because I wanted to go to jail, exactly to get this reaction", he said. "My going to jail was exactly what this was all about".

The Brazilian was detailed at the headquarters of Sebin (Bolivarian Intelligence Service) in Caracas for 10 days, held under the accusation of participating in a criminal organization. With no information concerning his whereabouts, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs ended up considering him to be disappeared.

In a text published on a social network, Diniz said that he was arrested on the 26th of December when he was with friends "drinking beer on the beach () by a man who said that he worked for the police but was in plain clothes and took me from the beach and was threatening me with a gun".

Diniz lives in Los Angeles (USA) and arrived in Venezuela at the beginning of December. During the period before his arrest, he published requests on social networks for food and toys for street children.

The contributions were requested in the name of an organization called Time to Change the Earth, whose only existing references are pages on social networks created at the end of November by the Brazilian, Diniz, himself.

Translated by LLOYD HARDER

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	Reprodução
	Brazilian Jonatan Moisés Diniz said he had planned out in advance to be captured by the regime of Maduro