The son of a southern Manitoba man who has been jailed in Venezuela for more than a decade hopes his father will be among prisoners released during the South American country’s current political turmoil.
Dave Sawatzky, 64, was arrested when a plane he was piloting landed on an airstrip in the western part of Venezuela in the early morning of Feb. 22, 2013.
In 2018, a judge sentenced him and a Colombian national travelling with him on charges related to drug trafficking, links to organized crime and air safety violations, including transporting dangerous goods, according to Venezuelan court documents.
But Sawatzky’s son, David — who is from Morden, Man. — said his father has always maintained he was in Venezuela not to traffic drugs, but because he wanted to sell his aircraft to a company there.
“He told me … he bought it from some guy in Texas and he was basically hoping to flip it for a bit of extra money, that’s all,” he said.
“Some national guardsmen … seized his plane and took the money he had on him for a return trip, and then they said he was drug trafficking,” said David. “He’s been in jail ever since.”
The Venezuelan government has said it will release some political prisoners in the aftermath of the capture by U.S. soldiers of former president Nicolas Maduro earlier this month. About 143 people had been released as of Monday, according to the non-governmental organization Foro Penal.
David Sawatsky says he hopes that momentum will lead to the release of his father.
“Hopefully that would … allow a pair of fresh eyes to look at the case and review it and go, like, ‘Hold on a minute, [we’ve] got this guy in here for how many years and we … don’t actually have anything to go on,'” he said.
Dave Sawatzky and the Colombian man told local authorities they had planned to fly from Belize in Central America to a Venezuelan city hundreds of kilometres south of where they ended up landing, according to court documents.
Their plane, an Aero Commander 500, had run out of fuel more than 12 hours into the trip. It was spotted by the Venezuelan national guard while circling an airstrip in the city of Acarigua, where the men hoped to refuel, according to the documents. The control tower was not operating.
Authorities said the aircraft was flying low and that its transponder had been turned off to avoid detection. The GPS destination showed a location near the Colombian border.
The court documents said authorities found four 30-gallon drums they said were empty, but contained traces of aviation fuel. A drug sweep also found traces of powder cocaine in the back of the small aircraft, whose passenger seats had been removed to allow it to carry more cargo, according to Venezuelan officials.
Sawatzky’s sentence was reduced to 17 years in prison after an appeal in 2021. A public attorney argued there had been several irregularities in how the forensic evidence was handled and that there was no proof of links to organized crime. The defender also argued it was illogical to say the men were transporting drugs in large quantities if authorities found only traces of cocaine.
One of several lawyers who handled the case said they’re convinced Sawatzky is innocent.
“No one has said he’s a political prisoner, but you bring up ‘the Canadian’ and everyone gets scared,” the lawyer said in Spanish. CBC News is not naming them because they fear the Venezuelan government will retaliate.
The lawyer said the new sentence based on less severe charges should make Sawatzky eligible for credit based on time spent working in jail, according to Venezuelan law. They said adding those figures, he would already have spent 18 years in jail.
However, the judges who have taken over the case have not done the necessary paperwork, the lawyer said.
“They’ve done nothing, nothing, nothing,” they said. “They treat him like he was, how should I say it — just a regular criminal.”
The Colombian man got a shorter sentence because Sawatzky admitted in court he had been the pilot of the plane, the lawyer said. The man has since been released.
Since his arrest, Sawatzky has spent time in several institutions. He was last moved to the Venezuelan jail of Tocuyito, about 100 kilometres west of Caracas.
David Sawatzky says his father would spend time between Manitoba and Belize, where he had a farm, before his arrest, and only flew for crop dusting.
In the 1990s, Dave Sawatzky was acquitted after he sold more than $2 million in wheat and barley to U.S. customers without a Wheat Board permit.
David Sawatzky said over the years, he’s spent tens of thousands on what he calls bribes, in exchange for things such as food or to help move his father’s case through the courts.
“I forget how many times he missed court dates just because they say … like, if there’s money, then, you know, the bus is working and if there’s not money, the bus isn’t working,” he said.
He said that at one point, he sent a “sizable chunk” of money to an official who demanded money to let him out.
“At one point they sent a picture … to relay to me that, you know, my dad was very, very skinny. And if they didn’t get money, then they would potentially stop giving him food,” he said.
The sentence is 17 years, “but I think it’s like an open 17 years” David Sawatzky said. “If he stayed in there for 17 years, he still wouldn’t get out — like, they would come up with something else.”
Errol Mendes, professor of constitutional and international law at the University of Ottawa, said he believes Sawatzky’s conviction is the result of officials engaging in corrupt activities, which is “not that far” from political imprisonment.
“The key facts — the fact that the plane has disappeared and certainly his own possessions have disappeared — that clearly shows that … he is essentially a prisoner of corruption, as opposed to any form of criminal conviction,” said Mendes.
The non-profit Foro Penal said 777 political prisoners — defined as people arbitrarily detained to achieve a political purpose, such as acting as hostages in negotiations with other countries — remained in Venezuela as of Monday, the whereabouts of 66 of them unknown.
Seventy of the prisoners are foreign or dual citizens, according to the organization. CBC News has reached out to Foro Penal to see whether Sawatzky is on its list.
Ben Rowswell, who served as Canada’s ambassador to Venezuela until 2017 and is now a consultant with the strategic advisory company Catalyze4, said he suspects political prisoners “will be released in drips and drabs as the Venezuelan government tries to give as little and the Americans try to take as much as possible.”
Rowswell did not comment on the specifics of Sawatzky’s case, but said human rights violations and abuses of power are likely to continue in Venezuela after Maduro’s capture, which left the rest of his government still in power.
“Hopefully, if there are Canadians among those political prisoners, they will come out soon. But the United States and Venezuela seem to be, if anything, collaborating in the repression of Venezuela,” he said.
David Sawatzky said he’s tried several times to get attention from Canadian authorities about his father’s case, but little has been done.
Global Affairs Canada said in a statement it’s aware of the detention of a Canadian citizen in Venezuela, and that consular officials are providing assistance, but no further information can be disclosed due to privacy considerations.
Manitoban hopes father will be among prisoners released in Venezuela
