Venezuela

Inside a Venezuelan Political Prison: False Identities and Kangaroo Courts

An invented name, recycled evidence, and an openly lawless proceeding kept prisoners guessing. The clearest signs of release were extra food, sunlight, and medical attention.

Joseph St. Clair | 8.3.2026 3:30 PM

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(Illustration: Fatima Ruiz, Midjourney)

Not long after I spent 11 days in a bare-bones clinic attached to the prison, where staff struggled to provide even ibuprofen, inmates across from my cell told me the loose sheet outside my door carried a new name: Jhon Piamond. I could see the same kind of sheets outside other cells, but the angle prevented me from seeing my own.

The name sounded invented: Jhon was a Venezuelan spelling of John, and Piamond was simply Diamond with its first letter changed.

During bed checks, guards called for Jhon Piamond and waited for me to respond.

"Who the hell is Jhon Piamond?" I asked.

No one explained the name. The guards did not appear confused about who I was, and the other Americans held with me knew my identity. Yet the institution could still put an invented name outside my cell and treat it as official.

This was not ordinary intake confusion. We were at Rodeo Uno, Venezuela's only maximum-security prison, a place whose electrical system ran through jury-rigged exposed copper wiring. Rodeo Uno held Venezuelans and foreign nationals whose detention was entangled with politics and diplomacy. At that point, I had not yet been formally charged. Nearly four months into my detention, authorities imposed the same one-size-fits-all accusations I saw used against foreign prisoners regardless of........

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