Venezuelan authorities have arrested the security chief of the country's top opposition leader, just over a week before President Nicolas Maduro faces a tough re-election race.
CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuelan authorities arrested the security chief of the country's top opposition leader on Wednesday, just over a week before President Nicolas Maduro faces a tough re-election.
Maria Corina Machado, a former congresswoman and leading opposition figure, said Mirceades Avila had been arrested on trumped-up charges of violence against women. The accusations stemmed from a violent incident over the weekend, when a group of Maduro supporters began exchanging verbal abuse with Machado's aides at a roadside restaurant on their way back from a campaign rally in a Caracas suburb, according to a video posted to social media.
After winning an opposition-run primary last year, Mr. Machado was barred from running against Mr. Maduro and instead has been touring the country with his handpicked deputy, Edmundo Gonzalez, a former diplomat previously unknown to Venezuelans.
“Avila traveled with me around the country and risked his life to protect me,” Machado wrote on X. “I am sounding the alarm to the whole world about Maduro's increasing repression of election activists.”
The Maduro government did not immediately comment on the arrests.
Machado said at least eight people linked to the opposition movement had been detained in recent days in four states across the country, including the owner of a sound truck that Machado and Gonzalez had hired for a recent rally in the city of Valencia.
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