Two US citizens were arrested in Venezuela, part of a group of seven people President Nicolas Maduro on Tuesday called “mercenaries” in the latest roundup ahead of the embattled leader’s expected inauguration for another term later this week.
Maduro said the detained U.S. citizens were “very high-level” but did not provide further details or evidence about the arrests.
“Just today we captured seven foreign mercenaries, including two important American mercenaries,” said Maduro, who is expected to take office on Friday for a third term after last July’s disputed elections that the opposition claims he won with a landslide. overwhelming majority. .
Maduro said the group of detainees includes two Colombians who he said were captured in unspecified parts of Venezuela, as well as three others who came from the war in Ukraine.
Neither the U.S. State Department nor Colombia’s Foreign Ministry immediately responded to requests for comment.
Venezuelan rights groups have warned of a revolving door in prisoner numbers, with new detentions even as older prisoners are released, including arrests of foreign nationals.
In late 2023, the Venezuelan government released dozens of prisoners, including 10 Americans, after months of negotiations between Caracas and Washington, while the United States released a close ally of Maduro, Colombian businessman Alex Saab .
In a speech from the presidential palace in Miraflores, Maduro claimed Tuesday that his government’s security forces had captured what he called 125 foreign mercenaries from 25 different countries who he said had entered the southern nation. American “to practice terrorism against the Venezuelan people”.
The remarks come as opposition presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez tours the region in a bid to increase his international support. Gonzalez has been declared president-elect by several governments, including the United States.
On Monday, outgoing US President Joe Biden declared Gonzalez the “real winner” of the July 28 vote.
Although the government-aligned electoral authority and Venezuela’s highest court ruled that Maduro won the election, the government has not released poll results to support that claim.
The opposition, however, released thousands of digitized copies of voting machine receipts that its observers collected days after the vote, representing more than 80% of the votes cast and demonstrating a lopsided victory for Gonzalez.
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