CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela attorney general Tarek Saab said on Monday his office has requested an arrest warrant and Interpol red notice against opposition figure Leopoldo Lopez, who spent years in detention in Venezuela and has lived in Spain since 2020.
Lopez has criticized the government in recent days amid opposition protests to President Nicolas Maduro’s third inauguration. Lopez said on X on Saturday that a proposal from former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe that military intervention was needed in Venezuela should be “seriously considered.”
Maduro was sworn in for another six-year term on Friday despite a dispute over who won the 2024 election. He has led the country since 2013 and presided over a long social and economic crisis.
Lopez is being investigated for instigating the use of arms against the state, treason, conspiracy and criminal association, Saab said in remarks on state television.
Lopez was imprisoned in Venezuela in 2014 for leading protests against Maduro and then moved to house arrest in 2017. In 2019, he again appeared at street protests and then took refuge at the Spanish ambassador’s residence, leaving Venezuela in 2020.
Lopez did not immediately respond to a request for comment but a spokesperson for his Popular Will party said it categorically rejected the warrant request.
An Interpol Red Notice is a request made to law enforcement worldwide that a person accused of a serious crime be located and detained.
Interpol did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Maduro was declared the winner of July’s presidential election by both Venezuela’s electoral authority and top court, though detailed tallies confirming his victory have never been published.
Venezuela’s opposition says ballot box-level tallies show a landslide win for its former candidate Edmundo Gonzalez, who is recognized as president-elect by several countries, including the United States. International election observers said the vote was not democratic.
Since the election, Gonzalez has fled to Spain, his ally Maria Corina Machado went into hiding in Venezuela and high-profile opposition figures and protesters have been detained.
Gonzalez had promised to return to Venezuela to be sworn in as president, but the opposition said on Friday afternoon that was not currently viable.
Machado was briefly detained at a march on Thursday and said the motorcyclist traveling with her had been shot and then arrested.
The Venezuelan government on Monday published a video they said showed the motorcyclist, who recounted hiding out at a hotel and said he was uninjured.
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