UN: Venezuela using death squads to kill young men

The killings were part of a strategy by the government of President Nicolas Maduro aimed at neutralizing, repressing and criminalizing political opponents and people critical of the government.

Geneva:UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet accused the Venezuelan government of using the death squad strategy to murder young men and stage the scenes to make it look like the victims resisted arrest. In a report released on Thursday, she said, the strategy was used to instil fear in the population in order to retain power and removing opponents with a shocking number of alleged extrajudicial killings.

Venezuela has slammed the report as distorted and biased, media reported.

Government figures showed deaths ascribed to criminals resisting arrest numbered 5,287 in 2018 and 1,569 by May 19, 2019. However, the UN report suggested that many of these deaths were actually extrajudicial executions.

According to the report, the victims were not only arrested and shot but were placed in a manipulated crime scene in order to suggest that they resisted police.

The report said the killings were part of a strategy by the government of President Nicolas Maduro aimed at neutralizing, repressing and criminalizing political opponents and people critical of the government.

Maduro is locked in a political battle with opposition leader Juan Guaido. The latter, head of the country's National Assembly, declared himself interim President in January and has the backing of over 50 countries, including the US and most of Latin America. Along with that, Maduro had always received the support of the military and allies such as China and Russia.

However, four million people had fled Venezuela since 2015 due to the economic crisis that has resulted in high unemployment and chronic shortages of food and medicine.

According to the UN, witnesses in their statement had described that the ways through which the Special Action Forces manipulated the crime scene and evidence. They would plant arms and drugs and fire their weapons against the walls or in the air to suggest a confrontation and to show the victim had 'resisted authority'.

Furthermore, the report added that the Venezuelan government is taking the help of FAES and other security forces to perform the crime.

The Venezuelan government has already denied the report saying that the UN has framed them with wrong charges, adding that several suspects had been imprisoned.

On accusations of torture, it says that detainees have been subjected to "one or more forms of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, including electric shocks, suffocation with plastic bags, waterboarding, sexual violence... and exposure to extreme temperatures".