Nahuel Gallo began to tell what he could not say for months. The Argentine gendarme who spent 448 days detained in Venezuela revealed new details of his captivity and spoke of beatings, isolation, threats and torture inside the Rodeo I prison.

The harshest testimony was about what he saw in prison. Gallo said that he witnessed how another detainee was tortured and that he could not intervene. “I saw how they tortured a colleague and I couldn't do anything,” he said in an interview with journalist Eduardo Feinman, on Radio Miter.

His case had been denounced by Argentina as an arbitrary detention. Gallo was detained on December 8, 2024 when he entered Venezuela from Colombia to visit his Venezuelan wife and son. The government of Nicolás Maduro accused him of alleged espionage and terrorism plans, an accusation that Argentina rejected from the beginning.

Gallo's testimony: torture, fear and silence

Gallo did not speak like someone who wants to close a story. He spoke like someone who is still trying to understand how he survived.

In previous interviews, the gendarme had already said that he was not prepared to tell everything that was done to him. “I am not prepared to recount the atrocities,” he said after being released, describing his time at Rodeo I and the psychological impact of confinement.

He also reported that during his detention he suffered beatings, threats, psychological pressure and extreme conditions. In the interview, he spoke of “448 days in hell” and asked that they not forget the political prisoners who are still detained in Venezuela.

“My son was the only thing that kept me strong.”

One of the strongest points of his testimony was his bond with his son. Gallo said thinking about him was what sustained him during captivity. “He was the only thing that kept me strong,” he declared, and called for international pressure to release other prisoners.

The gendarme went for more than a year without even speaking to his wife. He was never able to find out what was happening outside the prison. That family separation was a central part of the punishment, he highlighted days after being released, on March 1, 2026, after almost 15 months in detention.

Since regaining his freedom, he insists that there are still other detainees in Venezuela and asks the international community to increase pressure to release political prisoners and foreigners who remain imprisoned.

Rodeo I, a prison accused of psychological torture

During his captivity, Gallo was detained in Rodeo I, a prison mentioned in various testimonies for its harsh conditions and the presence of political prisoners. There he remained incommunicado and without contact with his family, and described the place as “a space of psychological torture.”

There were also testimonies from other detainees who denounced isolation, humidity, cockroaches and extreme confinement conditions, according to reports published in different media.

In fact, the Global Center for the Responsibility to Protect published an open letter from civil society organizations to the Venezuelan Minister of Penitentiary Services regarding detention conditions and possible torture at the Rodeo I prison.

Argentina denounced the case as arbitrary detention

The Argentine government maintained from the beginning that Gallo had been detained arbitrarily and took the case to international bodies. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights granted precautionary measures in favor of Gallo in January 2025, considering that he was in a serious and urgent situation. The OAS also condemned the detention and demanded his release.

Venezuela, for its part, defended the accusation against Gallo and linked him to alleged terrorist activities. That version was denied by the Argentine government and by the gendarme's family.