An ex- Venezuelan Defense Minister and critic of President Hugo Chavez, was sentenced to no less than 7 years of imprisonment on Friday, following a conviction of misappropriation and abuse of power.

Retired Gen., Raul Baduel, was ruled to serve seven years, and 11 months in prison, by a military encourage and has been banned from running for public office.

Baduel was tried on accusations, that 40 million bolivars, which were then worth $18.6 million at the authorized exchange rate, which went omitted in 2006 and 2007, whilst he served as Defense Minister. Baduel has maintained that he is not guilty and sacked the allegation as a politically provoked reprisal for his antagonism to Chavez.

Baduel had retired in the month of July in 2007, after Chavez removed him from his post as a Defense Minister, following which he quickly emerged as a prominent critic of the President.

He in public opposed a package of legal revisions that had been proposed by Chavez that would have preserved communist principles in the legal constitution but were discarded by voters in 2007.

Andreina Baduel, his daughter said that he was tried with no proof. She claimed that her father has always been and will remain to be an honest man, for all of his life.