The house in which Leopoldo López spent years under house arrest and which he left when he took refuge in the Spanish embassy and has been taken over by the authorities, according to his wife. The activist Lilian Tintori, a companion of the Venezuelan opposition, denounced this Friday the “looting” and destruction of her house in the South American country by an order, she assured, from the president in charge of Venezuela.
“Delcy Rodríguez ordered to enter, empty it, steal it and knock it down,” Tintori said in a video published on Instagram, in which he assured that they also took his two dogs and parrots that were still in the residence, located in the northeast of Caracas, in the Los Palos Grandes urbanization.
Tintori said that after their departure from Venezuela they had already suffered robberies. But now he claims that they “violently” entered his house, without specifying whether they were security officials or private individuals, and took everything that was inside, such as photos, books, as well as tables.
“They entered the house, they stole everything, they emptied it completely and demolished the house, the walls inside are destroyed,” he noted. Tintori demanded the return of his property and an end to the persecution against his family.
In May 2019, after he took refuge and took refuge in the residence of the then Spanish ambassador Jesús Silva, his home was raided and robbed by alleged agents of the Venezuelan intelligence service. In 2020, the leader of Voluntad Popular went into exile with his family.
Complaints of this type have been repeated in recent weeks among Venezuelan opponents in exile. On February 25, the organization Vente Venezuela denounced the confiscation of the house of Laura Acosta, assistant to opposition leader María Corina Machado. The home was secured by security forces as if it were an arbitrary confiscation process, without court orders.
That same month, Magalli Meda, Machado’s collaborator, also reported that “16 armed men” entered her house in Caracas to Meda is out of Venezuela after escaping last year with a group of opponents with whom she was sheltered in the residence of the Argentine Embassy in Caracas. The leader explained that these people arrived in “six vans” and “spent hours inside to steal everything and leave signs on the door that say ‘Secured’ and ‘Seized’.
These measures against the opponents run at the same time as Delcy Rodríguez attempts a political opening with the , the release of hundreds of political prisoners and the reviews of measures for thousands of persecuted people who have been granted full freedom.
In 2023, Chavismo approved the Organic Law of Asset Forfeiture that allows the seizure of assets allegedly acquired illicitly so that they become property of the State. But critics warned it could be used to persecute the opposition.
