Acknowledgement: This post is a follow-up to: https://steemit.com/swiss/@janheram/torture-and-murder-of-swiss-citizen-maria-clelia-spinas-dora-in-venezuela-for-reporting-on-corruption-march-11-2009
Details about the murder sent by myself, Jose Herrera, were published online by Roy S. Carson on VHeadline.com. VHeadline.com was a website about Venezuela in English ran from London. This website is still available through archive.org.
It was important that this murder case would be given special attention; otherwise the criminals would get time to flee the country.
The information I gave Roy Carson was published from London and it was noticed by the Venezuelan diplomatic missions in several English-speaking countries, which would read VHeadline articles on Venezuela daily. The fact that there were details about the murder's possible culprit coming form the UK meant that there was an informant, myself, operating from Venezuela.
No press outlet issued as many details about the murder's suspect and the likely reasons behind the murder.
After I provided him with more details, Roy S. Carson published a second article on March 17, 2009 mentioning Manuel Andrade's name and his reasons to kill Maria Clelia Spinas Dora.
Vheadline.com reached the English-speaking audience living in Venezuela, Venezuelan diplomatic authorities, etc.. This influence generated pressure by demanding transparency from all legal authorities involved, especially since local press inside Venezuela began to catch up with the case. Roy S. Carson (because of his connection with me as someone who spoke with the victim about the subject) was the first to publish details about the murder's suspect that were fundamental for the police.
Venezuelan high-ranking political officials pressured the scientific police to investigate the crime and find whether what was published on VHeadline.com was true (specifically details incriminating Manuel Andrade who was closely connected to the Chavista Mayor of San Jose de Guanipa and other people, such as directors in Banco Guayana)
Read the post that continues relating this story, "Four Men Arrested. Numerous officials investigated given obvious connections", will be posted on this platform within 24-48 hours.
Maria Clelia Spinas -- a candle caught in the wind of Venezuelan corruption!
http://web.archive.org/web/20090411142215/http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=78182
Published: Sunday, March 15, 2009
Bylined to: Roy S. Carson
Grieving grandmother Hedi Spinas Dora weeps as she takes fond farewell of a daughter who was brutally slaughtered by hired assassins sent by corrupt bankers and a construction contractor to ensure "silence" over a raft of corrupt housing deals that ripped-off the public purse for millions...
Just last Wednesday -- four days ago! -- Maria Clelia Spinas Dora's life was brought to an abrupt end as knife-wielding assassins butchered the 53-year-old Swiss-Venezuelan engineer to death in her apartment in Puerto La Cruz on Venezuela's eastern Caribbean coast. Clelia had worked successfully as a Housing & Habitat Ministry inspector until she got too close for comfort to questionable transactions entered into by executives at the Anzoategui branch of Banco Guayana and local construction contractor Manuel Andrade.
Large sums of Venezuelan taxpayers' money had been stolen and Clelia had pledged to get to the bottom of a corruption scandal that was growing hour by hour...
In documents secured by VHeadline, copies of which will be made available to proper investigative authorities, criminal complicity is clearly shown between Banco Guayana, contractor Manuel Andrade and members of the latter's family to defraud the public patrimony out of millions upon millions of Bolivares. CICPC detectives have undertaken a preliminary investigation -- mostly centered on the facts surrounding the bloody killing and the perpetrators who are still at large. Some suspects have been interrogated by the police for as much as 10 hours but the probe appears to be getting nowhere and is quickly becoming yet another untold chapter in Venezuela's out-of-control violent crime statistics.
Maria Clelia Spinas Dora -- a candle caught in the wind of corruption
Not unsurprisingly, government and law enforcement officials are hesitant to get too much up close and personal with acts of corruption while the decreased, Maria Clelia Spinas -- perhaps because of her Swiss origins -- had set her sights on at least attempting to bring an end to the corruption that continues to bring Venezuela to its knees. Perhaps she spoke too often about her determination ... in fact she had become an inspiration to many who will continue her struggle against corruption ... perhaps not as openly as she did, for fear of their own lives, but...
Construction contractor Manuel Andrade and his sister are named in numerous documents already views by VHeadline.com and they all center around dealings with Banco de Guyana on hundreds of shady dealings over a spate of years.
A household employee at the apartment building where Clelia Spinas lived -- the Atarraya building in Puerto La Cruz -- was a witness to Wednesday morning's bloodbath although she could do nothing since she had been bound and gagged by the three workmen, dressed as MRW delivery servicemen who had managed to gain access to the property by deceiving the doorman. Complicity has not been ruled out since the cleaner was not supposed to have come another day.
Clelia's grieving mother arrived at the regional Barcelona (Anzoategui) airport with her surviving daughter and a grandson from from her home in Switzerland on Friday evening, March 13, and was driven directly to the funeral parlor where, overcome with grief, she was able to view her daughter's corpse laid out in her coffin.
The 83-year-old grandmother, who was scarcely able to walk, even with the aid of a stick, said it was all so much of a tragic surprise for her. The words she could muster through the tears where Schweitzer-German mixed with Spanish as she told her dead daughter "you are pretty" (Bist Du Shoen).
Frauil octogenarian, Mrs. Heidi Spinas Dora thanked everyone who had come to say goodbye to Clelia and told them that Clelia's only failing in life was that "she always wanted to help everybody else!"
She added "Clelia is now happy in heaven with her father (who died almost a year ago)!"
Roy S. Carsoneditor@vheadline.com
Editor's Note: despite a number of threats made against us since our original publication on Thursday, VHeadline is pledged to press Venezuelan government and law enforcement authorities to take remedial action based on the documentary evidence we have secured. Copies are already in the hands of investigative authorities and we unequivocally state that the copies we hold will not be made to "disappear" even if those held by Venezuelan investigators ultimately do so. As for Banco Guayana and construction contractor Manuel Andrade, we invite them to take legal action against VHeadline if they feel that their "unblemished" characters have been sullied in any fashion! We are secure in the knowledge that the TRUTH shall win the day (even in Venezuela)!
Fears that the corrupt mastermind of Maria Clelia Spinas' slaughter may be able to buy his way out of detention...
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Fears-that-the-corrupt-mas-by-Roy-S-Carson-090414-331.html
General News 4/16/2009 at 10:28:51
By Roy S. Carson
Homicide investigators are taking precautions on fears that a wealthy/corrupt property developer may trick his way out of prison by making a fake appeal to judges that he has a health condition that prevents him from remaining in police custody. 58-year-old Manuel Arturo Andrade Duarte could easily buy his way to freedom, and we have information that he has a private jet standing by to whisk him away to Trinidad on the first leg of an international escape plan.
Already on March 15 -- just four days after 53-year-old Swiss-Venezuelan housing inspector Maria Clelia Spinas Dora was brutally slaughtered by knife-wielding assassins in her apartment in Puerto La Cruz on Venezuela's eastern Caribbean coast -- VHeadline fearlessly named Manuel Andrade as a mastermind of the crime ... Clelia had got too close for comfort to questionable transactions entered into by executives at the Anzoategui branch of Banco Guayana and super-rich Manuel Andrade.
Andrade Duarte was captured in a residence in the Nazareno residential area of El Tigre (southern Anzoategui State) on Sunday evening by Puerto La Cruz CICPC Chief of Detectives Roger Mendez. His 37-year old son Manuel Alfredo Rojas Bravo was captured after he drove his Chevrolet Tahoe almost into the entrance of Anzoategui State Police Area 5 Command HQ after a violent pursuit. The arrests came after a month-long investigation by CICPC detectives who were able to establish that two men arrested last Friday had been paid Bs.F 20,000 (US$9,300) to kill Maria Clelia Spinas Dora in the brutal attack. They were named as Luis Alberto Guerra Rodriguez (21) and Fernando Antonio Pelaez Navarrete (32). A third suspect, Jhon Gonzalez Prado (34) was shot dead on March 29 (also in El Tigre) following an unrelated altercation.
At a press conference in Puerto La Crux, CICPC Commissioner Alfredo Montero said that Manuel Arturo Andrade Duarte and Manuel Alfredo Rojas Bravo had clearly been identified as the masterminds of the assassination of Maria Clelia Spinas Dora and that they had paid Bs.F 20,000 for killing. The public prosecutor says formal charges will be laid within the next 30 days and has requested that the accused be held in custody pending trial. Andrade and his son are described on the charge sheet as being the owners of 2M Construction and 2000 AZ C.A, property developers. Commissioner Montero explained that Andrade Duarte and Rojas Bravo had planned the death of the Ministry of Habitat & Housing Inspector because she had discovered irregularities in the execution of public works and repair of roads. She had dedicated her life to researching government work contracts and had discovered a number of anomalies (acts of corruption) that made her an obstacle to "certain interests." In the end she had shown that Andrade has cheekily charged local authorities some Bs.F 5 million and had falsified documents presented to a local branch of Banco Guayana on which her signature had been forged.
A close friend of Maria Clelia Spinas Dora said, only 15 days before her death, that she was receiving death threats, but that she did not wish to take any such threats seriously.
Montero said detectives had recovered the knife used to kill the Housing Inspector in her apartment and also found a cellular telephone used by the killers to communicate with Andrade and Rojas after the deed was done. Investigations are on-going and Montero does NOT rule out that a number of other arrests may be made within the next few days.
Rojas and Andrade were represented in court by defense lawyers Luis Guillermo Alvarez, Amparo Sosa and Barbara Nunez. In a preliminary examination, yesterday, 3rd District prosecutor Rosa Perez has asked 5th Control Court Judge Eloina Brito Ramos to decide whether or not the defendants may be held in custody pending trial under Article 12 of the Organic Law Against Organized Crime. A formal decision was adjourned until today, Tuesday!
Clelia Spinas was born in Switzerland. She was raised in Venezuela, and decided to become a naturalized Venezuelan citizen. She was married and had three children. She was committed to working for the positive development of Venezuela and had a reputation for honesty and and determination. She had been employed by the Ministry of Habitat & Housing to inspect infrastructure project constructions of El Tigre where she began to realize that there were many inconsistencies in projects involving a contractor by the name of Manuel Andrade.
Read the post that continues relating this story, "Four Men Arrested. Numerous officials investigated given obvious connections", will be posted on this platform within 24-48 hours.