Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado announced the kidnapping of Juan Pablo Guanipa by armed men shortly after his release from prison. The case is causing further tension in the country.
Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate María Corina Machado announced Monday that fellow opposition member Juan Pablo Guanipa was kidnapped by armed men shortly after his release from prison. TASR informs about it according to the report of the AFP agency.
“Guanipa was kidnapped in the Los Chorros district of Caracas. Heavily armed men in civilian clothes arrived in four vehicles and forcibly took him away. We demand his immediate release,” Machado wrote on the X social network.
Release of prisoners
Authorities freed Guanipa, 61, on Sunday, a month after the government announced it would begin releasing political prisoners. It comes after the kidnapping of the country’s president Nicolás Maduro and his wife by US forces, with the US mounting pressure to release political prisoners in Venezuela.
Human rights organization Foro Penal said at least 30 prisoners were released on Sunday. The families confirmed the release of Guanipo and prominent lawyer Perkins Rocha.
Allegations of terrorism
A lawyer for the Vente Venezuela opposition movement, he was arrested in August 2024 on charges of terrorism and related crimes. Guanipu was arrested by the authorities in May of last year for allegedly leading a terrorist plot. Both men have denied all allegations.
The country’s opposition and human rights groups have claimed for years that the government uses imprisonment as a means of suppressing dissent, writes AFP. The government denies these claims and emphasizes that the people behind bars have committed crimes.
