Published at: 28/05/2025 09:00 PM

(CLARÍN, May 25, 1963)

• At the end of the government of Rómulo Betancourt, on May 24, 1963, national public opinion was shocked by the monstrous crime committed by State security forces, in the person of the 20-year-old high school student Claro Omar Rivero.
• The doctor and deputy to the National Congress, Jesús Yerena, sent a medical report to the media where he determined that Claro Omar Rivero was subjected to savage torture for six days before being killed with three gunshots in the cervical region.
• Rivero's badly battered body showed rings of gunpowder in the bullet punctures in the neck, meaning that the shots were fired at point-blank range. All of this distorted the government's contradictions aimed at turning the case into a police crab.
• Deputy Jesús Yerena denied the government's official version, widely circulated in the press, according to which the shots were fired more than 130 meters away.
• The version of the then Minister of Internal Relations, Carlos Andrés Pérez, to divert attention from the resounding case was clearly implausible.
• After murdering him, Claro Omar's body was abandoned in the shoulder canal of the Eastern Highway, in front of La Carlota Airport, more than 200 meters away from where police reports tried to conclude that the rifle had been fired.
• In reality, the young man, a 20-year-old high school student, was imprisoned for several days before being executed, on charges of being a guerrilla cadre and a dangerous operator of the urban left.
• Finally, thanks to the investigations carried out by the deputies José Herrera Oropeza and Jesús Yerena, it was possible to determine that Claro Omar Rivero was subjected to intense interrogation using methods of extreme violence and then killed with gunshots, for acting as an urban cog with some left-wing groups.

Mazo News Team