Overview
- Alberto Trentini, a 46-year-old Italian aid worker, has spent a full year in Caracas’s El Rodeo I prison without publicly formalized charges after his 15 November 2024 arrest.
- At a Milan press conference, mother Armanda Colusso accused the government of doing too little, noting there were no contacts with Caracas until August and saying her patience has run out.
- Family lawyer Alessandra Ballerini said unauthorized go-betweens undermined efforts, requested a visa to visit Trentini, and asked special envoy Luigi Maria Vignali to accompany her after previous entry was denied.
- Italy has named Vignali as envoy and secured a September consular visit by Ambassador Giovanni Umberto De Vito, while Venezuela’s foreign minister has cited a supposed process that the Italian embassy says it cannot confirm.
- Rights groups and reporters describe El Rodeo I as harsh, and observers link the case to Caracas’s use of foreign detainees as leverage, citing recent releases of other nationals while Trentini remains jailed.