CARACAS (Reuters) – Five people jailed in Venezuela, including well-known opposition figures, have been released, the opposition said around midnight on Thursday following an electoral deal with the government of President Nicolas Maduro and Washington’s demand certain prisoners be freed.
U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration on Wednesday eased Trump-era sanctions on the Venezuelan oil and gas industry, in response to an election deal reached between the Venezuelan government and the opposition.
Washington has given Maduro until the end of November to begin lifting bans on opposition presidential candidates and start releasing political prisoners and “wrongfully detained” Americans, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday.
The U.S. State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and Venezuela’s government also did not immediately confirm a list of names posted on social media by Gerardo Blyde, the opposition’s head negotiator at the talks with the government.
Journalist Roland Carreno of the opposition party Popular Will, who had been held in prison, former legislator Juan Requesens of the Justice First party, who was kept under house arrest, and three others were released in the middle of the night, Blyde said.
Blyde posted a picture of himself with Carreno which he said was taken in Caracas.
Maduro’s government and the opposition reached an agreement on Tuesday for the 2024 presidential election to be internationally monitored and held in the second half of the year.
But the deal stopped short of agreeing to reinstate opposition candidates who have been barred from public office – including Maria Corina Machado, the frontrunner in a Sunday primary where the opposition is set to choose its 2024 candidate.
A senior State Department official, speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity, has threatened to reverse sanctions relief measures unless Maduro lifts the bans and frees prisoners.
Carreno, a former director of operations for Popular Will, was arrested in October 2020 and was on trial on charges of conspiracy and financing terrorism.
Former lawmakers Requesens had been under house arrest after being in prison for more than two years and was under investigation for the explosion of two drones at a 2018 event attended by Maduro.
For years the opposition has urged the government to free over 200 people that NGO Foro Penal, recognised by the Organization of American States, considers to be political prisoners.
Several recent legal moves – including the conviction of six protesters on conspiracy charges – were seen by the opposition and civil rights groups as an effort to scare potential activists ahead of the election.
A U.S. State Department official said on Wednesday he expects movement in the near term on releases of wrongfully detained Americans. There are believed to be more than half a dozen American prisoners, several belonging to that category.
(Reporting by Mayela Armas, Vivian Sequera and Matt Spetalnick; Writing by Natalia Siniawski and Julia Symmes Cobb; editing by Inti Landauro, Deborah Kyvrikosaios, Barbara Lewis and Jonathan Oatis)
