Wanted Venezuelan candidate says opposition facing persecution

CARACAS: Venezuelan opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, threatened with arrest for insisting he was the rightful winner of July presidential elections, urged prosecutors Wednesday not to partake in what he called political persecution.

Gonzalez Urrutia is the target of an arrest warrant issued Monday over the opposition’s insistence that incumbent President Nicolas Maduro stole the July 28 vote.

The opposition released polling station-level results it says show Gonzalez Urrutia, 75, won by a landslide.

Venezuela’s electoral authority announced a win for Maduro within hours of polls closing but failed to provide a full breakdown, claiming a cyber attack on its systems.

The United States, the European Union and several Latin American countries have refused to recognize Maduro’s claimed victory without seeing detailed voting results.

The opposition’s publishing of election results is at the root of the warrant for Gonzalez Urrutia on charges including usurpation of public functions, forgery of a public document, incitement to disobedience, sabotage, and association with organized crime and funders of terrorism.

On Wednesday, he made an appeal through his lawyer, Jose Vicente Haro, for Venezuela’s attorney general “not to prosecute acts that are not of a criminal nature, not to initiate political persecution.”

Gonzalez Urrutia has been in hiding for a month, and Haro explained Wednesday he had ignored three successive summons to appear before prosecutors because he was in a position of “defenselessness.”

Haro met late Wednesday with Venezuela’s Attorney General, Tarek William Saab, whom critics say is aligned with Maduro, along with the rest of the justice system.

After the meeting, Saab released a statement saying Haro had “acknowledged the constitutional and legal powers” of Venezuela’s prosecutors.

“Tomorrow, we will make the whole truth known,” Saab said, without giving details or explaining what he meant.

The president has said Gonzalez Urrutia belongs behind bars along with opposition leader Maria Corina Machado — whom Gonzalez Urrutia, a retired diplomat, replaced on the ballot at the last minute after she was barred from running.

– ‘Widespread’ violations –

The disputed election outcome sparked Venezuela’s worst unrest in years, with 25 civilians and two soldiers killed, according to authorities.

Nearly 200 people were injured and more than 2,400 arrested.

Presidents Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil and Gustavo Petro of Colombia were scheduled to meet Maduro for talks on the crisis, “probably” Wednesday, according to Colombian Foreign Minister Luis Gilberto Murillo — though Venezuela’s interior minister Diosdado Cabello later denied any such meeting would take place.

A presidential source in Brazil said he did not know of any meeting.

Venezuelan political analyst Mariano de Alba wrote on X Wednesday that “expectations of mediation are very low, especially after the warrant against Edmundo Gonzalez.”

On Tuesday, Brazil and Colombia — leftist allies housing millions of Venezuelan refugees — had expressed “deep concern” about the arrest warrant.

Tensions with the United States also rose sharply this week after Washington seized a private aircraft used by Maduro in the Dominican Republic and flew it to Florida, citing sanctions violations.

The standoff continued Wednesday as a US official reported that a US Navy sailor had been detained by Venezuelan authorities.

Human Rights Watch in a report issued Tuesday accused Venezuelan authorities of committing “widespread human rights violations” against protesters, bystanders and opponents in the aftermath of the disputed vote.

-AFP