Venezuela’s ‘hell’ prison where lags are raped and feces are placed on heads

In harrowing details of conditions faced by prisoners in El Helicoide’s ‘huge torture chamber’, it is claimed people have been electrocuted and raped with guns

Detainees unlucky enough to end up in a brutal Venezuelan prison could be “hanged, beaten, raped and left with bags of excrement over their heads”, it has been claimed. The El Helicoide prison, located in the capital Caracas, was originally intended as a spiral shopping center, but under the regime of the now imprisoned US President Nicolás Maduro it became a ‘huge torture chamber’.

Built in the 1950s, the enormous El Helicoid complex was planned as the world’s first drive-thru mall, a shopping center with 300 boutiques and a system of spiral ramps.

It now bears the name “hell on earth”, where prisoners are said to face a miserable existence and endure torture such as the “Russian” or “white torture”, a cruel punishment that involves a small windowless cell.

There they are greeted with walls painted completely white and incessant bright lights. It causes prisoners to lose track of time and even hallucinate and feel as if their mind is ‘dripping away’.

In further shocking details about the prison, The Telegraph reported that prisoners would wake up only to find their blood-splattered friends lying unconscious on the floor.

Venezuelan opposition politician Rosmit Mantilla, who spent two years in prison, claimed prisoners had been electrocuted and, in disturbing detail, others raped at gunpoint.

He said: “Some of them lost the sight in their right eye because an electrode was placed in their eye. Almost all of them were hung like dead fish while they were tortured.

“Every morning we saw prisoners lying on the ground who had been taken away during the night and tortured, some brought back unconscious, covered in blood or half-dead.”

Prisoners reportedly had bags placed over their heads, sometimes containing feces, before being attacked by guards.

Speaking about the cramped conditions, Rosmit explained that they called this particular cell “el infiernito”, which translates to “little hell”, noting the lack of ventilation and endless bright lights.

He added that due to lack of space, prisoners were forced to urinate in the same room where they kept their food, revealing that there was so little space that they “couldn’t even lie down”.

El Helicoide was largely vacant for years, but the Venezuelan government began moving agencies into the building in the 1980s, including SEBIN, the country’s intelligence agency.

But with the recent military operation in Venezuela this month, in which the US led by President Donald Trump launched attacks on Venezuela and captured Maduro, new hope may have been offered to the families of those captured.

Following the military action, Jorge Rodríguez, president of the country’s National Assembly, claimed that some prisoners would be released, with the regime claiming this has already happened for 116 people.

However, the human rights organization Penal Forum claims that this number is only 56.