Published at: 28/10/2026 09:00 PM

ALBERTO LOVERA WAS ARRESTED, TORTURED AND DISAPPEARED 61 YEARS AGO

(What's going on in Venezuela? , March 18, 1966)

• 61 years ago, on October 18, 1965, the professor and leader of the Communist Party of Venezuela, Alberto Lovera, was kidnapped by agents of the General Directorate of Police (DIGEPOL) in the Plaza de las Tres Graces, near the Central University of Venezuela (UCV).
• Nine days later, on October 27, the teacher's chained body appeared entangled in the nets of a fisherman. This happened on the beach known as El Morro de Barcelona, near Lecherías, in Puerto La Cruz, Anzoátegui state.
• During the two days he was at the headquarters of DIGEPOL, Professor Alberto Lovera was subjected to barbaric torture. In the “interrogation room”, his vertebrae were broken, his hands were cut off and part of his body mutilated. Finally, with the intention of disappearing him, he was transferred to the state of Anzoátegui and thrown, with a beak stuck to his chest deep in the sea.
• To hide this abominable crime, the Leoni government did everything possible to cover up its material and intellectual authors. Among them, the then Minister of Internal Relations, Gonzalo Barrios, and the tormentors J.J. Patiño, Carlos Vegas, Alberto Ochoa, José R. Antunez and Carlos Quintero.
• Deputy José Vicente Rangel, in a 44-page report, presented evidence of the government's responsibility and authorship in this murder, which was documented in his book “The Black File”.
• The actions of Rangel and María del Mar Álvarez de Lovera, the teacher's widow, not only served to set a precedent in the fight for the clarification of the crime, but also to release some witnesses and political prisoners who were arbitrarily detained in the Las Brisas building, Los Chaguaramos housing estate in Caracas, headquarters of the macabre political police of the State. Everyone had the same luck as Professor Lovera.
• Rangel denounced the system of torture, disappearances and murders established by Leoni from DIGEPOL headquarters, whose immediate responsibility fell entirely on the minister and his thugs.
• One year after this appalling murder, it was already known who the culprits were. However, at the hands of the Technical Judicial Police (PTJ), the file was “roulette” between the Judge of the Second Criminal Court of First Instance of Barcelona, edo. Anzoátegui, led by Dávila Varone and Cumare Navas, Judge of First Instance in Criminal Matters of the Judicial District of the Federal District in Caracas. In this last instance, it was frozen for several years.

Mazo News Team