Published at: 12/02/2025 09:00 PM

(Weekly ¡PUNTO! , FEBRUARY 28, 1973)

• 52 years ago, during the first administration of Rafael Caldera, the 24-year-old boy, Argelio José Reina, disappeared in San Juan de Los Morros, and then reappeared presumably dead in a traffic accident near the city of Maturín, Edo. Monagas.
• That day, Argelio left his house to visit the political prisoners detained in the General Penitentiary of Venezuela in San Juan de los Morros in the state of Guárico.
• Arbitrarily, agents of the DIRECTORATE OF INTELLIGENCE AND PREVENTION SERVICES (DISIP) arrested him, without a court order, outside the prison, taking him to the anti-guerrilla camp Teatro de Operaciones (TO) No. 4 in Cocollar, edo. Sucre. There he was tortured until his executioners left him dead.
• After several days of his disappearance, on Sunday, February 25, 1973, Argelio's relatives received, from the hands of their captors, the completely disfigured corpse, without eyes, without nails and with deep wounds all over his body.
• Elena Reina, mother of the victim, reported details about the state and conditions in which she received her son's body:
  • National Guard (GN) agents handed over a sealed urn, where they found the body destroyed, with a disfigured face, hands without nails and with evidence of having received a savage beating.
  • The relatives demanded that doctors from the forensic service of the General Hospital of Maracay carry out an autopsy. They refused to do it.
  • That same day, faced with this refusal, he was transferred to Caracas to perform the final necropsy and determine the causes of the crime.
• Argelio José was assassinated for his revolutionary ideas, which materialized in permanent protests and solidarity with hundreds of political prisoners.
• He was imprisoned in the San Carlos Barracks for three years. He was released in December 1972.
• He lived in the Los Placeres neighborhood of San Juan de los Morros.
• Upon proving his innocence, Argelio José Reina was acquitted by the Military Courts after being accused of the crime of subversion.
• The 93 political prisoners crammed into the San Carlos Barracks went on an indefinite hunger strike until the government clarified the circumstances under which the young Argelio Reina was tortured and murdered.

Mazo News Team