American couple tries to pressure Venezuela to stop ‘white torture’ of imprisoned nephew
.jpeg "Matthew John Heath")
Years of training as a geologist have done little to prepare Everett Rutherford for the unfamiliar terrain he now treads. It’s not shale rock formations or buried oil he must figure out. It’s diplomacy.
Rutherford and his wife Trudy were navigating the corridors of power in Washington last week. They have also burned up the phone lines to Venezuela trying to free their nephew, retired U.S. Marine Matthew John Heath.
“We are normal people who find ourselves in extraordinary circumstances,” said Rutherford, 63, a soft-spoken man with a long ponytail and a serious demeanor.
Heath was arrested and charged as an alleged terrorist last September in Venezuela. He was detained at a highway checkpoint under disputed circumstances in the porous La Guajira region, where Colombia and Venezuela share a haphazard border.
Although there was no mention of weapons in the original arrest report, days later Heath’s arrest was announced in the capital with photos of an alleged arsenal supposedly found in his car. Heath’s Venezuelan attorney, Guillermo Heredia, has presented documentation showing some of that arsenal was too long to fit in the trunk of the car in which he was stopped.
Heath has been refusing to attend court proceedings, seeking transfer from what rights groups call an inhumane prison. He complained about conditions in February, and because of missteps by Venezuelan prosecutors, his case has gone back to the beginning with a restart potentially scheduled for Sept. 2.
The Knoxville, Tennessee, native is coming up on a year in a Venezuelan prison and just spent his 40th birthday there in what amounts to a dungeon underneath a parking structure in the capital city of Caracas, where carbon monoxide seeps in. His uncle said the family has only been allowed two calls with him — the most recent about two weeks ago when a call came unexpectedly and was made without his lawyer present.
“Matthew’s voice was very calm, and his father’s interpretation was that the phone call may have been staged by the DGCIM,” said Everett, referring to the acronym for Venezuela’s military counterintelligence agency.
Added Trudy Rutherford, “He did say ‘things are better here,’ which we know is not true … we send food, clothing and medicine every Monday. Sometimes he gets a two-minute phone call [with his lawyer], he’ll say ‘I didn’t get my medicine, I don’t get all my food.’”
Through non-government groups and foreign diplomats, the Rutherfords and their supporters are seeking to pressure Venezuela for so-called wellness visits. These would allow a U.N. organization, the Red Cross, the Vatican or some charity to verify Heath’s mental and physical soundness.
“He hasn’t really seen his attorney face-to-face going on nine weeks now. Dr. Heredia doesn’t know how Matthew’s physical health is. We don’t know how his psychological health is,” his aunt said, pointing out that a court order to move him to a prison with better conditions has been ignored.
A big challenge in pursuing diplomatic solutions for Heath, however, is that the Trump administration stopped recognizing the regime of President Nicolás Maduro in January 2019 in favor of a lawmaker it considered the constitutional president. This has continued in the Biden administration, so direct government-to-government talks remain a challenge.
Maduro is widely viewed as seeking something in return for freeing Americans who are detained in Venezuela. Even improving conditions for Heath’s conditions seems open to horse trading for an easing of sanctions or restrictions on sales of needed diesel fuel to Venezuela.
“Maduro wants something for Matthew. We’d just like to know what it is, so our government can get involved and start working on getting our Americans home,” said Trudy, 59, who helped raise Heath and considers him almost a son.
She describes Heath as a bookworm who signed up for military service while still in high school to continue a family tradition.
“He’s very honest and hard working. His life’s goal was to be a captain of his own boat,” said Trudy, a quality control specialist at a Knoxville-area pipe manufacturer.
Heath bought a 53-foot trawler named the Purple Dream, and hoped to start a charter business. Among the many mysteries is what happened after he made landfall in the Colombian port city of Cartagena on his way to the island of Aruba. He was arrested inland in Colombia in March 2020 and charged with possession of ammunition for a 9 mm weapon although he had no gun on him. The timeline and trail after that are murky.
The family believes Heath may have been subsequently extorted, asking his parents of humble means and friends to send him money. He may have eventually been “sold” by a crime ring to the Venezuelan government.
“One thing is clear — when his father ran out of money, he popped up on the grid in Venezuela,” said Everett Rutherford.
The Rutherfords were in Washington last week to attend an awards dinner put on by the James W. Foley Foundation, a non-government group that works to free hostages and the unlawfully detained and named for a U.S. journalist kidnapped and slain in Syria.
Heath’s family used the dinner to meet with other families, and during the week visited State Department officials and congressional staffers for the Tennessee delegation.
“We’re anxious to tell Matthew’s story to anyone who will listen,” said Rutherford, 63, now a consultant who has been spending countless hours on his nephew’s case.
It’s not an easy story to hear. Human rights advocates who monitor prison conditions in Venezuela say the place holding Heath is known for deplorable conditions.
“They have received orders from within the regime to transfer all political prisoners out of the DGCIM headquarters but they have refused to do so with Matthew and other …. prisoners that are considered to be the most emblematic military officers and personnel that have rebelled against the regime,” said Tamara Suju, a rights activist who also forms part of Heath’s defense team.
She added, “Most prisoners are not allowed to bathe regularly, allowing them to do so about once a week or when they have court appointments.”
In an earlier report on a section of the prison holding Heath, called “the House of Dreams” in a bitterly ironic twist, Suju had documented prisoners sprawled on the floor trying to breathe the cooler air coming from an adjacent room with air conditioning.
“Matthew is being subjected to what is called ‘white torture,’ which is the one that does not leave physical traces, but has a severe psychological impact,” she said. “Those that are held at the DGCIM are subjected to this type of torture every day.”
McClatchy Washington Bureau national security correspondent Michael Wilner contributed.
This story was originally published August 24, 2021 at 10:30 AM.
