VENEZUELA. GOVERNMENT INVESTIGATES 744 EXTRAJUDICIAL EXECUTIONS

Venezuela's Attorney General's Office said that it was investigating 744 cases of extrajudicial executions by members of the regional police in the eastern state of Bolivar.
The Attorney General's Office said that state authorities recently ordered a shakeup in the Bolivar police force (IPOL), due to the "region's alarming increase in crime."
The statement from the Attorney General's Office said that most of these alleged crimes were described as "clashes with police units, although a number of forced disappearances have also been reported."
The human rights group PROVEA said in 2005 that for every policeman or soldier killed on duty, 45 civilians died in actions depicted as "clashes" that were in fact extrajudicial executions.
"For every 100 violent deaths, barely 26 go to court, which gives one cause to say that in Venezuela there is a large amount of impunity. There's no justice, there are some officials who are not trained for security work with a democratic character," PROVEA leader Carlos Correa said. National ombudsman German Mundarain demanded that the judicial authorities "thoroughly" investigate the country's national, regional and municipal police forces. "The majority of the police officers ... deserve to be investigated thoroughly in these matters detrimental to human rights," he said.