Venezuelan authorities said Sunday they were seeking court approval to place prominent opposition politician Juan Pablo Guanipa under house arrest shortly after he was captured by gunmen in Caracas in what his son called a kidnapping.
The incident occurred hours after , a close ally of Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Corina Machado, was released from prison after more than eight months on charges of leading a terrorist plot.
Venezuela’s Public Ministry said in a statement that Guanipa violated the terms of his release, but did not provide details. It did not address whether he had been arrested again.
Government promised amnesty
The incident casts uncertainty over government promises to pass an amnesty law and release political prisoners, after the Trump administration captured and deposed longtime leader Nicolás Maduro.
The politician’s son, Ramon Guanipa, and Machado, who won the Nobel Prize for his efforts to overthrow Maduro, both said the opponent had been forcibly taken by unidentified men.
“Heavily armed men dressed in civilian clothes arrived in four vehicles and forcibly took him away,” Machado said in a post on X.
The younger Guanipa said in a social media video: “My father was kidnapped again.”
Just hours earlier, Juan Pablo Guanipa had posted videos on social media in which he spoke to journalists and a crowd of supporters.
He called for the release of other political prisoners and called the current government illegitimate.
Maduro’s 2024 re-election was widely seen as rigged and several countries, including the US, do not recognize the legitimacy of his government.
Releases since January 8
Guanipa had said in an interview with a local website that he spoke briefly with Machado after being released, and hoped to speak with her the following day.
Venezuela’s opposition and human rights groups have said for years that the country’s socialist government uses detentions to stamp out dissent.
The government denies holding political prisoners and says those arrested have committed crimes. Officials say nearly 900 of those people have been released, but they have not been clear about the timeline and appear to be including releases from previous years.
The government has not provided an official list of how many prisoners will be released or revealed their identities.
The rights group said 383 political prisoners have been released since the Venezuelan government announced on January 8 that it would begin a new series of releases.
A further 35 releases were recorded on Sunday (8), including opposition politician Freddy Superlano and lawyer Perkins Rocha, also close allies of Machado.
The group’s director, Alfredo Romero, said on social media that he still does not have clear information about who took Guanipa.
