Demise of Venezuelan opposition determine in custody 'vile', US says

[ad_1] The US has criticised the Venezuelan authorities over the loss of life of an opposition determine in custody, calling it a "reminder of the vile nature" of President Nicolás Maduro's regime.

Alfredo Díaz died in his jail cell on the El Helicoide jail in Caracas the place he was being held for greater than a yr, human rights organisations and opposition teams have mentioned.

The Venezuelan authorities mentioned the 56-year-old confirmed indicators of a coronary heart assault and was taken to hospital, the place he died on Saturday.

The US intervention is the most recent in an escalating confrontation between the Trump administration and Maduro, who has accused it of looking for regime change.

In latest months, the US has elevated its army presence within the area and has carried out a collection of lethal strikes on boats it says have been used for smuggling medication.

US President Donald Trump has accused Maduro himself of being the pinnacle of one of many area's drug cartels - an allegation the Venezuelan president vehemently denies - and threatened army motion "by land".

The US State Division's Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs mentioned Díaz had been "arbitrarily detained" in a "torture centre".

Díaz was detained in 2024 after being amongst many opposition figures to dispute the outcomes of that yr's presidential election.

Venezuela's government-controlled election council declared Maduro the winner, regardless of opposition tallies displaying their candidate had received by a landslide.

The elections had been broadly dismissed on the worldwide stage as neither free nor honest, and sparked protests throughout the nation.

Díaz, the previous governor of the Nueva Esparta state, a group of islands off Venezuela's Caribbean shoreline, was accused of "incitement to hatred" and "terrorism" for questioning Maduro's declare to victory.

The Venezuelan human rights group Foro Penal has raised issues over deteriorating situations for political prisoners within the Latin American nation.

"One other political prisoner has died in Venezuelan jails. He had been imprisoned for a yr, in solitary confinement," Alfredo Romero, the organisation's president, wrote on X.

He mentioned that Díaz had solely been allowed one go to from his daughter throughout your entire size of his incarceration. He added that 17 political prisoners have died within the nation since 2014.

Opposition teams have additionally criticised the federal government over the loss of life of Diaz.

María Corina Machado, a outstanding opposition chief who received this yr's Nobel Peace Prize however who stays in hiding to keep away from arrest, mentioned Díaz's loss of life was not an remoted incident.

"Sadly, it provides to an alarming and painful chain of deaths of political prisoners detained within the context of the post-election repression," she wrote on X.

Machado, a vocal critic of Maduro's authorities who was integral to galvanising the opposition in opposition to him, will seemingly be absent from the Nobel Prize-giving ceremony in Oslo on Wednesday. Venezuela's legal professional normal mentioned final month that she can be thought of a "fugitive" if she travelled to Norway.

The Democratic Unitary Platform, an opposition alliance, mentioned Díaz "died unjustly".

Diaz's personal political occasion, Democratic Motion (AD), additionally paid tribute to the previous governor, saying he had been unjustly detained with out due course of and had remained in situations "that ought to by no means have violated his basic rights".

Tensions between the US and Venezuela have change into more and more strained over what Trump has described as efforts to stem the movement of medication and migrants into the US.

US air strikes on vessels within the Caribbean and Pacific have killed greater than 80 individuals.

Trump has accused Maduro of "emptying his prisons and insane asylums" into the US, and designated two Venezuelan drug cartels - Tren de Aragua and Cartel de los Soles - as terrorist organisations, the latter of which Trump alleged Maduro led.

Maduro has in flip accused the US of utilizing its battle on medication as an excuse to depose his socialist authorities and get its palms on Venezuela's huge oil reserves. Colombia's left-wing President Gustavo Petro has mentioned the US strikes had been an try to "dominate" Latin America.

The US has additionally stationed a big naval pressure - its largest deployment within the area in a long time - together with 1000's of troops.

The Venezuelan military reportedly swore in additional than 5,600 troopers in a single go on Saturday, in response to what army leaders known as US "threats".

The identical day, the Venezuelan authorities mentioned that Maduro and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had agreed to renew Turkish Airways flights between the 2 nations.

The provider was one in every of six main worldwide airways to have their touchdown licences revoked after quickly suspending flights to Caracas over a US warning of "heightened army exercise" within the space.