How Maduro sent a message to Venezuelan soldiers

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A leading Venezuelan human-rights lawyer alleged last week that Rafael Acosta Arévalo, a retired captain in the Venezuelan navy, was tortured to death in late June by members of dictator Nicolás Maduro’s military counterintelligence service.

Tamar Sujú said Acosta was blindfolded, hung from a tree, and viciously beaten. She also said that his captors forced him to play Russian roulette while he swung in the air.

A leaked forensic report shows injuries consistent with her claims. But the decorated 50-year-old officer, who was honorably discharged in 2007, may have endured much more before he died in the wee hours of June 29. He was in a Caracas cafe on June 21 with eight other retired officers when they were all arrested, possibly on suspicion of conspiring against the regime. Mr. Maduro no doubt wanted to send a message to the military....

The report includes a look at 135 cases of detained individuals. In most, “women and men were subjected to one or more forms of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, including electric shocks, suffocation with plastic bags, water boarding, beatings, sexual violence, water and food deprivation, stress positions and exposure to extreme temperatures.”

At 10 p.m. on June 28 Acosta was brought before a judge, though he had not been charged with a crime. He couldn’t lift his arms, stand, nod his head or speak, according to Ms. Pérez. His eyes rolled around in his head.

Even the regime-appointed judge was appalled at the sight of the battered defendant, who was immediately ordered to a small, poorly equipped hospital near Fort Tiuna. He died hours later.

The leaked forensic report reportedly shows 16 broken ribs, a broken nose and bleeding in the brain. Ms. Pérez told me he couldn’t stand because the soles of his feet had been mutilated....

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