WASHINGTON — The State Department determined in recent days that Eyvin Hernandez, a 44-year-old deputy public defender from Los Angeles, is being wrongfully detained in Venezuela, U.S. officials and friends of the Hernandez family told McClatchy and the Miami Herald.
Hernandez was vacationing in Colombia in March of this year when he traveled to the country’s border region with Venezuela and was apprehended by armed men, according to his family. Ever since, he has been in the custody of Venezuela’s military intelligence unit, the DGCIM, in a section of the country’s most notorious prison.
The determination makes Hernandez the only known U.S. citizen officially designated as “wrongfully detained” in Venezuela after a major prisoner swap earlier this month secured the release of seven other American prisoners, in exchange for two prominent Venezuelans convicted on U.S. drug trafficking charges.
