Manitoba man hopes father will be among prisoners released in Venezuela

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.