Human rights activities Lilian Tintori said today that she was unsure whether her husband, Leopoldo Lopez, would be one of the political prisoners released from custody by the Maduro regime.
According to Tintori, she has had no contact with the regime regarding a possible release.
Speaking during a press conference earlier today, Tintori said that her husband “is a prisoner of conscience” who should not be in detention. She said:
My home is surrounded by police, carrying both [pistols] and [rifles].
Leopoldo Lopez is arguably the highest profile political prisoner in regime custody. He was arrested on February 18, 2014 at an anti-government protest in Caracas after he was accused of precipitating the violence that rocked the city just days earlier and left three people dead.
Lopez was subsequently brought to trial, and was sentenced to nearly 14 years in prison for his alleged role in the protest violence. Lopez’s trial was universally condemned by human rights organizations like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the United Nations’ Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights as a farce with no basis in reality.
Lopez was transferred to house arrest in July of last year.
Borges Suggests Twitter Account Hack
Julio Borges, the head of the Primero Justicia (PJ) opposition party, tweeted out a message late last night in which he said that he was considering engaging in a round of talks with the Maduro regime “to build he road to peace” in Venezuela.
Moments later, Borges deleted the message and then said that it was “false”, suggesting that his account had been hacked.
The supposedly hacked referenced the Organization of American States’ (OAS) condemnation of the May 20 presidential election, and said:
After what happened at the OAS, I think that a dialogue is the best option, in the next few days I will announce a meeting of my party with the government of [Nicolas Maduro] and that way we will be able to build the road to peace in Venezuela.
Borges followed up the message with another, in which he embedded an image of the first tweet with the word “FALSE” written across it in red capital letters.
Borges’ second tweet makes reference to “mercenaries 2.0”, which likely means hackers. Borges wrote:
[Nicolas Maduro’s] mercenaries 2.0 are trying to manipulate our position which has been firm in the defense of the interests of Venezuelans. This tweet is FALSE, the dictatorship only has dirty tricks and brute force left, but still it won’t be able to remain in power.
Venezuela and Cuba Look For Migration Agreement
Caracas and Havana are working towards cementing a migration agreement between the two countries, according to the Cuban ministry of foreign affairs.
El Nacional reports that among the topics discussed during the meetings–which concluded recently–included measures to combat human trafficking.
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