National Assembly deputy Gilber Caro was arrested yesterday afternoon by officers from the Fuerzas de Acciones Especiales (FAES), marking the second time second time in three years that the Voluntad Popular (VP) politician has been imprisoned by the Maduro regime.
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights reacted to Caro’s arrest by saying that it was “extremely worried” About the development, and that:
… this event follows a pattern of persecution against [National Assembly] deputies from the opposition.
Caro was arrested in the La Florida neighbourhood of Caracas. As of the writing of this update, there is no official word indicating why Caro was detained, or where he is being held.
Leopoldo Lopez, the head of the VP party who was sentenced to nearly 14 years in prison at the conclusion of a sham trial in 2015, reacted to Caro’s arrest in a tweet:
Maduro, you are a coward! The people don’t support you and you the [National Assembly] doesn’t support you, [so] you send your lackeys to arrest the deputies that you couldn’t buy like our brother [Gilber Caro]. Your desperate actions will not break either us nor the people.
Lopez was set free from house arrest in April 30 of this year, likely by supporters inside regime security services, and is now living in the Spanish embassy in Caracas.
Caro was arrested in January 2017 after the police allegedly found military weapons, explosives and other items in his vehicle during a traffic stop. Caro spent over two years in prison while his trial sat mostly idle at the courts, and was released in June of this year as part of a commitment that Maduro made to release political prisoners.
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