Several nations Thursday condemned the arrest by Venezuelan government intelligence officers of a high-level politician associated with opposition leader Juan Guaido, calling the move by President Nicolas Maduro arbitrary and unconstitutional.
In this March 6 photo, Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido, right, speaks with the Venezuelan National Assembly's first vice president Edgar Zambrano during a session in Caracas.
After Zambrano refused to leave his car, which security officials had surrounded, the vehicle was towed to an undisclosed location with Zambrano inside. Hours before the arrest, the Maduro-controlled Supreme Court charged Zambrano and the nine other assembly members with treason, conspiracy and rebellion, among other charges, in connection with April 30 demonstrations in which Guaido unsuccessfully called upon the armed forces to abandon Maduro and support him as Venezuela’s leader.
“The arrest is null and void because according to the Venezuelan constitution the only organ that can lift legislative immunity is the National Assembly,” the statement said. As of midday Thursday, none of the other nine assembly members charged with treason and rebellion was known to have been arrested. Among those charged is Henry Ramos Allup, who held Guaido’s job as National Assembly president in 2016.
Lopez, a former Caracas borough mayor and leading opposition figure, was arrested and jailed in 2014 on suspicion of inciting violence and placed under house arrest in 2017. Maduro wants Lopez rearrested, but he has taken refuge as a guest in the Spanish Embassy in Caracas.
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