UN details Venezuela torture, killings to neutralise opposition

A United Nations report said on Thursday Venezuela's security forces had arrested and shot young men, planted drugs and arms on them and manipulated evidence to suggest they had resisted arrest, as part of a government strategy to neutralize the opposition.

Government figures showed that deaths ascribed to criminals resisting arrest numbered 5,287 last year and 1,569 by May 19 this year, but the U.N. report said many of them appeared to be extrajudicial executions.