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President Maduro ‘doing well’ in NY jail as Venezuela releases political prisoners
Protests continue in Venezuela as interim President Delcy Rodriguez begins freeing prisoners in a gesture towards the US amid ongoing tensions.
As Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, ‘captured’ by US forces, claimed on Sunday that he is ‘doing well’, his country waits for more political prisoners to be released after they were captured by US forces about a week ago.
Maduro was ‘doing well’ in his cell in New York, news agency AFP reported quoting his son Nicolas Maduro Guerra as saying in a video released by his party on Saturday.
As the country sees prolonged protests since the US attack, nearly 1,000 demonstrators waved flags and placards with Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores' faces while they rallied in the west of Caracas and in the eastern Petare district of Venezuela.
"I'll march as often as I have to until Nicolas and Cilia come back… I trust blindly that they will come back -- they have been kidnapped," said a protestor, Soledad Rodriguez, 69, according to the AFP report.
Setting prisoners free
According to rights groups, Venezuela has some 800-1,200 political prisoners.
A large number of prisoners are being released in a gesture of appeasement for which Washington took credit, news agency AFP quoting Rodriguez as saying, who added that the country would take ‘the diplomatic route’ with the United States as President Donald Trump claimed that it was ‘in charge’ of Venezuela.
At least 21 people that included several prominent members of the opposition were released by Saturday evening, prisoners' rights groups and the opposition said. Relatives of the political prisoners waited outside jails for the promised release.
Not resting unless Maduro is back
While the pro-Maduro protests drew much lesser crowd than in the past, Rodriguez, who was attending an agricultural fair, sought to reassure the powerful pro-Maduro base by stressing that Venezuela is not “subordinate” to Washington. She also said that she would "not rest for a minute until we have our president back."
Venezuela's interior minister Diosdado Cabello and defense minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez were also visibly absent from the rallies.
Trump's on political prisoners' release in Venezuela
United States carried out overnight air raids across Venezuela on January 3 and ‘captured’ President Maduro and his wife. They were taken to New York City by US forces to stand trial on drug-trafficking and weapons charges.
Trump on Saturday took to his social media handle Truth Social to announce that Venezuela had started the process of releasing its political prisoners. “Venezuela has started the process, in a BIG WAY, of releasing their political prisoners. Thank you! I hope those prisoners will remember how lucky they got that the USA came along and did what had to be done,” he wrote on his Truth Social handle.
(With inputs from AFP)
