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ePaper created 2015-11-10, 17:27:36 | version 1.33.00
REDACTED Page 154 of 190 to commit a crime. The charges against him were eventually dismissed following a medical report that confirmed that Angel suffered from mental impairment and a cognitive disability that should be evident to any person with a sufficient level of education, given that people suffering from this condition have severe difficulties in understanding.”673 To date, there are no news of the progress of the investigations for torture and other abuses to which Cardozo was subjected during his detention.674 viii)Gloria Tobon Two days later, on 19 March 2014, 47-year old unemployed Gloria Tobon was on her way from her hometown Rubio to San Cristobal, the capital city of Táchira State, in order to buy food. She was traveling with her daughter when they were stopped by officers of the National Guard, who grabbed Tobon by the neck and dragged her along the road for several meters before forcing her into a van. While she was being taken to a detention center, they beat her up and threatened her with electric shocks to force her to say who were the leaders and financial backers of the protests. While she was detained, she was kept blindfolded, she was doused with water and then electric shocks were applied to her arms, breasts and genitals. She was threatened and told that she would be killed and buried in pieces.675 In an interview that she gave to the Venezuelan writer Leonardo Padron, Tobon said: “There they poured water on me. Time after time. Then they put electric shocks on my nails and feet. Very strong electrical shocks. They also did it on my breasts.”676 673 AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL. (2014) Briefing to the UN Committee Against Torture, 53 Session, November 2014. Amnesty International [Online] 3 November. Available from: https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/amr53/020/2014/en/ [Accessed 26 October, 2015] p.15 674 AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL. (2015) Venezuela: the Faces of Impunity. p.34 675 AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL. (2014) Briefing to the UN Committee Against Torture, 53 Session, November 2014. pp.16-17 676 PADRON, L. (2014) I was a Liver. Info Venezuela. [Online] 25 May. Available from: http://infovnzla.com/2014/06/04/i-was-a-liver/ [Accessed 26 October, 2015]. Gloria also said in her interview to Leonardo Padron that “Then came a woman who scolded the soldiers. She took me to my daughter. They had us handcuffed. And they were taking us from one room to another one by one. They were taking pictures of us. I did not know why. Each time they brought a student as a detainee it was horrible, the screams, what they did to them. My daughter was forced to watch how they were beating a guy, a nurse. Katheriin knew him. They made him kneel and kicked him in the face. They broke his nose and almost half of the teeth. He was bleeding so much that my daughter almost fainted. They mocked her. They said, ‘damned, we’ll take you to a pit, we’ll chop you into pieces’. My daughter was told that she would be transferred to the jail in Santa Ana so a prisoner could rape her. I was crying, I was too scared. I was blindfolded for twelve hours, imagine that. Every few minutes they came by and beat us. One stood on my daughter’s bare, just for amusement. They took our phones and wrote horrible things. When someone called me they said I was already