It is the first time he leaves the country after a ban on leaving the country that lasted 12 years.

It is the first time he leaves the country after a ban on leaving the country that lasted 12 years.

Leocenis García (Maracaibo, Venezuela, March 4, 1981) is a Venezuelan journalist and businessman. He was a majority shareholder of the Grupo 6to Poder publishing house expropriated by the Maduro regime and founder of the Prociudadanos movement. Some organizations considered him a political prisoner for his nine arrests.

On March 29, 2016, he and other prisoners were included in an Amnesty and National Reconciliation Law that President Nicolás Maduro promised to ignore. Article 9 of the Law welcomed him. García anticipated the alleged submission of the judiciary to the president, and denounced that they were interestedly colluded against the National Assembly to ignore the Amnesty Law. On April 11 of that year the government declared the law unconstitutional. Since the purchase of the Globovisión channel in 2013, García has been critical of the president of that media, Raúl Gorrín, whom he accuses of corruption with Claudia Díaz, the former nurse of Hugo Chavez, accused in the Panama Papers scandal.

That same year García tried to buy the ATEL television channel. The negotiation was immediately known, the regime took the television signal from the air. Both the Inter-American Press Association and the International Broadcasting Association branded the government’s actions as abuse. Days later, Cardinal Jorge Urosa Sabino himself backed Garcia and condemned the fact. In protest, Leocenis García, was chained in front of the Conatel headquarters of the government’s communications agency, where he was arrested.

In recent months he worked on a law of Military Guarantees under the order of the President of the National Assembly Juan Guaidó as part of the steps for a transition

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In 2008 he was arrested, and one year after his captivity, and still detained in the Tocuyito Prison, he was proposed by Henry Ramos Allup, general secretary of the Democratic Action party, to head the list of candidates for the National Assembly by the Carabobo state . Months later, he resigned from the candidacy when he was released and became the campaign leader of other prisoners who aspired to a seat in the National Assembly. They issued an arrest warrant against him. [10]

Leocenis surrendered to the authorities after challenging Hugo Chavez to reopen the 6th Power. The government yielded and, Garcia appeared at a National Guard command.  García was taken by a secret police plane, known as El SEBIN, and held in “El Helicoide”. His detention extended until November 24 of that year. when he left in the middle of a media hunger strike in protest of his captivity.

In 2013, he was arrested on charges of tax evasion and capital legitimation. The complaint had been made by PSUV deputy Julio Chávez. While in prison, Garcia began a hunger strike that lasted for just over a month. Due to the state of health he was in the wake of the hunger strike, on September 28 he was allowed to continue his trial released.  On March 22, 2015 he was arrested again. While being detained at the headquarters of the SEBIN (Bolivarian Intelligence Service), on May 4, 2015 he initiated a strike for the second time. hunger, which forced him to be transferred to Carlos Arvelo Military Hospital on May 12. García was publicly accused from the Venezuelan state television channel of crimes such as tax evasion.  According to the government, García was protagonist of crimes against the State; the Inter-American Press Society and the Catholic Church denounced “slander” against Leocenis García has been jailed nine times. His last imprisonment was taken by prosecutor Narda Sanabria.  His protest lasted for 87 days until he was finally granted the benefit of house arrest.

On July 4, 2016, during the night, García’s house arrest measure was revoked by means of a warrant for his capture. The journalist’s defense argued that the sentence was due to a controversial letter that Garcia wrote a week before his arrest, where he condemned the actors willing to national dialogue promoted by the Maduro government. After his arrest, the Secretary General of the Organization of American States, José Luis Almagro, showed Concern for what happened, considering that with the revocation of the measure, the government of President Nicolás Maduro once again attacked the freedom of expression in Venezuela. The former ambassador of Venezuela to the Organization of American States, Diego Arria He also regretted Garcia’s arrest, and asked Venezuelans not to stop sympathizing with his cause, as well as that of other political prisoners.
García was then detained until the last day of that year, when New Year’s Eve was released with seven students and former presidential candidate Manuel Rosales, considered as political prisoners. García gave a controversial press conference three days later , where he asked to remain at a negotiating table between the government and the opposition, to free a few hundred political prisoners. The next day the president of Unasur, Ernesto Samper, greeted and sympathized with Garcia’s call. The same was done by a group of relatives and political prisoners. Although Garcia had challenged Zapatero at the dialogue table, his sister met in October while he was detained with the former Spanish president. In February 2017, just one month after his release, Spanish ex-president Rodríguez Zapatero himself met with García, who advocated for other political prisoners.

In 2017, he presented an economic rescue plan for Venezuela, with the advice of Spanish economist Daniel Lacalle. In March 2018, the IACHR cited the Venezuelan State for violations of García’s rights, based on his recurring detentions and expropriation of his companies.

Leocenis García in USA – July, 2019 (Pictures):