Venezuela: Opposition politician kidnapped shortly after launch | EUROtoday

In Venezuela, the outstanding opposition politician Juan Pablo Guanipa is claimed to have been kidnapped just a few hours after his launch from jail. Opposition chief María Corina Machado, who obtained the Nobel Peace Prize on the finish of final 12 months, introduced this on Platform X. “A few minutes ago, Juan Pablo Guanipa was kidnapped in the Los Chorros settlement of Caracas,” she wrote.

Heavily armed males in civilian garments got here in 4 autos and took him away by pressure. “We demand his immediate release,” Machado mentioned. The Venezuelan public prosecutor’s workplace, for its half, mentioned it had requested Guanipa’s arrest as a result of he had violated circumstances. Further particulars have been initially not identified.

Guanipa, the chief of the Primero Justicia get together, was arrested in May 2025. The authorities of the authoritarian head of state Nicolás Maduro, who was nonetheless in workplace on the time, accused him of planning terrorist assaults to disrupt parliamentary and regional elections.

According to the human rights group Foro Penal, there are round 800 political prisoners within the South American nation. Many have been arrested in the course of the protests in opposition to Maduro’s 2024 re-election, which was overshadowed by allegations of fraud.

Just a few days after the US intervention and Maduro’s arrest in early January, the federal government of performing President Delcy Rodríguez introduced the discharge of a lot of Venezuelan and overseas prisoners.