Venezuelan authorities are releasing a “large number” of prisoners, some of them foreigners, five days after US forces ousted authoritarian leader Nicolas Maduro, parliament speaker Jorge Rodriguez says.
He tells reporters the government was carrying out the immediate “release of a large number of Venezuelan and foreign nationals” in what he called a “unilateral gesture.”
It is the first sign of possible concessions by Venezuela’s interim government since President Donald Trump’s administration said it was “in charge” in Venezuela after US forces seized Maduro and took him to New York to face trial.
Jorge Rodriguez does not say how many prisoners were being released. The non-governmental monitor Foro Penal says there are 806 political prisoners held in Venezuela, including 175 military personnel.
Trump said Tuesday that Venezuelan authorities were “closing up” a “torture chamber in the middle of Caracas,” without elaborating.
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