Rafael Poleo

Rafael David Poleo Isava (born 19 September 1937) and of the political magazine Zeta (named for the 1969 film Z), which he founded in 1973. Previously he was the director of El Mundo (appointed by Miguel Ángel Capriles Ayala at the age of 23, c. 1960) He was at one time a member of the Venezuelan Chamber of Deputies for Democratic Action, and was elected to the Venezuelan Senate in the 1998 election.

In 1991 Poleo published accusations of corruption against then-President Carlos Andrés Pérez, with El Nuevo País publishing a copy of a $400m cheque which it said had been deposited at the Bank of Credit and Commerce International in New York in the name of Pérez' mistress, Cecilia Matos. Poleo fled Venezuela after being warned by a Congressman that the DISIP secret police were going to kill him. Pérez' temporary removal from office was made permanent in August 1993, and he was convicted of corruption and sentenced to 28 months' imprisonment in 1996. Rafael Poleo, third from left to right at a meeting of the management team of the newspaper "El Nuevo País" in 2007. Poleo left Venezuela for Florida a second time after charges were brought over remarks he made in a Globovisión television programme in 2008. On 13 October 2008 on Aló Ciudadano he said "I am concerned that Hugo (Chávez) may end his days like Mussolini did: hanging heels over head." According to El Universal, "Government officials branded such remarks as solicitation to assassination, civil disobedience and rebellion against the public powers."

Poleo has four children, three of them active in the field of journalism.