Farce in Venezuela

Venezuela long ago became a one-party state, but its lawlessness keeps getting worse. On Friday a Venezuelan court found 44-year-old opposition leader Leopoldo López guilty of a trumped up charge of inciting violence and sentenced him to nearly 14 years in prison. Mr. López, a Harvard graduate and former mayor of Caracas’s Chacao district, has already been held for 19 months in the Ramo Verde military prison. He turned himself in after he was targeted for arrest following antigovernment protests in 2014 that exposed the unpopularity of President Nicólas Maduro’s regime. His trial was closed to the public, and press reports say the court allowed 138 witnesses brought by the prosecution but only one of 50 witnesses or bits of evidence brought by the defense. More…