The prosecution of Venezuela requested this Monday the arrest of the opposition Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutiarival of the president Nicolas Maduro in the July elections in which the president was declared the winner amid allegations of fraud by the opposition.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office released on its social networks a copy of the request to a court with jurisdiction in terrorism of the “arrest warrant against citizen Edmundo González Urrutia” for alleged election-related crimes, including “disobedience of laws”, “conspiracy”, “usurpation of functions” and “sabotage”.
González Urrutia, 75, was summoned to testify before the prosecutor’s office on three occasions. He did not attend, although the third summons coincided with a power outage across the country on Friday, August 30.
The diplomat – in hiding since July 30 – argued that The Public Prosecutor’s Office acted as a “political accuser” which would subject him to a process “without guarantees of independence and due process.”
The subpoenas targeted the website where the opposition posted copies of more than 80% of the voting records, which it claims prove González Urrutia’s victory on July 28 and Maduro’s fraud.
The Venezuelan government, for its part, accuses the opposition of “usurping” the functions of the electoral body and publishing fraudulent material.
The Supreme Court, accused of favouring Chavismo with its decisions, ordered an investigation after validating the official result of the National Electoral Council (CNE), which declared Maduro the winner with 52% of the votes. But it did not publish the details of the table-by-table count as required by law.
Maduro has asked for jail time for González Urrutia and the opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, also in hiding.
He blames them for acts of violence during the post-election protests, which left 27 dead – two of them soldiers -, almost 200 injured and more than 2,400 arrested.
The Attorney General, Tarek William Saabhad already announced a criminal investigation against both of them for “inciting military insurrection,” after calling on the military to recognize González Urrutia’s victory.
The US seized Nicolas Maduro’s plane in the Dominican Republic
USA seized the plane of Nicolás Maduro, an authority of the Venezuelan regime, after determining that it violated US sanctions and sent it to the state of Florida This Monday, two US officials told the CNN.
The plane was described as the Venezuelan equivalent of the Air Force Onewith which Maduro made trips around the world, and his seizure This is the latest episode in a tense relationship between the United States and Venezuela.
The sources did not explain why the ship was seized at this time, but they did tell the network that various federal agencies were involved in the process: the Department of Commerce, the Bureau of Industry and Security, the Department of Justice, and the Department of Homeland Security.
Source: Ambito