Venezuela’s attorney general seeks arrest of opposition’s Leopoldo Lopez

The Venezuelan government has petitioned the International Criminal Police Organization, known as Interpol, to seek the arrest of leading opposition figure abroad.

Attorney General Tarek Saab announced on Monday that his office has requested an arrest warrant for Leopoldo Lopez, a former mayor and leader of the Voluntad Popular political party.

Lopez lives in exile, having fled in 2020 for Spain after spending six years in prison and under house arrest.

Saab’s call for his arrest comes after Lopez posted on social media in support of recent comments made by former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe.

Uribe, a right-wing president who served from 2002 to 2010, held a news conference on Saturday at the Colombian border with Venezuela, where he pushed the international community to remove Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

“We are calling for international intervention, preferably backed by the United Nations, to remove these tyrants from power and immediately call for free elections,” Uribe said from the border town of Cucuta.

Lopez responded to a video clip of Uribe’s speech on the social media platform X that same day.

He cited the disputed July presidential election as an indication that the opposition has exhausted all its options for removing Maduro.

“After trying ALL paths, including winning an election with 70% of the votes, we must seriously consider this proposal,” Lopez wrote. “I dare say that the vast majority of Venezuelans agree.”

Election heightens tensions

Sworn in to a third six-year term on Friday, Maduro, a former bus driver, succeeded his political mentor Hugo Chavez as president in 2013.

His administration has long been accused of human rights abuses, including the arbitrary detention and torture of perceived political rivals.

Scrutiny of that human rights record was heightened during the 2024 election, when leading candidates were barred from the race and the results were criticised for a lack of transparency.

The national electoral authority announced Maduro’s victory within hours of the polling stations closing, without providing the usual breakdown of the votes, spurring suspicion.

In response, the opposition published copies of what it said were the official voting sheets, showing its candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez, winning by a wide margin.

Gonzalez himself has since gone into exile, after a Venezuelan court issued a warrant for his arrest in September. Ahead of Maduro’s inauguration, he returned to the Americas to tour countries that backed his claim to the presidency, including Argentina and the United States.

Maduro has long accused foreign powers of seeking to undermine his authority, and he has often dismissed protests against his government as the result of foreign conspiracies.

“The gringos are behind this plan,” Maduro said in a televised address after protests erupted in the wake of the latest presidential race.

Ultimately, the government estimates 2,000 people were arrested in the post-election crackdown, and human rights groups say 25 people were killed.

The US has since increased its bounty for information that might lead to Maduro’s arrest, from $15m to $25m. It recognises Gonzalez as the rightful winner of the 2024 election.

Maduro, meanwhile, announced his government had arrested foreign “mercenaries” last week, including Colombian and US citizens.

A controversial arrest

Lopez, the Voluntad Popular leader, was initially detained under Maduro in February 2014.

The government charged him with a range of crimes, including public incitement and conspiracy to commit arson, although some of the most extreme charges — including “terrorism” — were later dropped.

He was eventually sentenced to more than 13 years in prison. Human rights groups like Amnesty International denounced the proceedings as likely to be “politically motivated”, and a United Nations working group on arbitrary detention called for Lopez’s release.

In 2017, Lopez was moved from the Ramo Verde prison to house arrest, and in 2020, he fled to Spain.

In announcing new charges on Monday, Attorney General Saab told Venezuelan state television that he would seek to arrest Lopez again for instigating the use of arms against the state, treason, conspiracy and criminal association.