Gustavo Azócar Alcalá, a journalist based in the western Venezuela state of Táchira who had been detained since July 9, 2009, was sentenced to two and a half years in prison on March 26 on a charge of “administrative corruption” but was granted a conditional release, according to Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). The court acquitted him on charges of embezzling public funds and fraud.
The charges were brought against Azócar as a result of a complaint by Táchira governor Ronald Blanco La Cruz in 2000 claiming that the show he presented on the privately-owned TV station Televisora del Táchira had failed to include spots that the Táchira state lottery had paid for.
Azócar, who was also a correspondent of the national daily El Universal, is a well-known critic of both President Hugo Chávez and the governor, about whom he has made damaging allegations in the past. At the time of his arrest, he insisted he was being victimised at the governor’s behest because his reporting. The flaws in the prosecution case tended to support this claim.
Azócar will have to report every week to a judge and is forbidden to change his address, leave Táchira or run for office until 2012, when the next presidential election will be held.
