Venezuela opposition leader Gonzalez’s son-in-law freed
Rafael Tudares, the son-in-law of Venezuela’s opposition leader Edmundo Gonzalez, has been released from prison after a year behind bars, Tudares’ wife said, in the latest such release since the United States captured president Nicolas Maduro.
The 46-year-old lawyer was arrested in January 2025 while taking his children to school in the capital Caracas and, like other political prisoners, was charged with terrorism, charges that relatives said were politically motivated lies.
“After 380 days of unjust arbitrary detention and enduring an inhumane state of enforced disappearance for over a year, my husband Rafael Tudares Bracho returned home,” Mariana Gonzalez de Tudares said on
Ricardo Cusanno, former head of the Red Cross in Venezuela, posted a photo with Tudares, his wife Mariana, and Gilles Roduit, the Swiss ambassador in Caracas, at the Swiss diplomat’s residence.
According to sources familiar with these statements, some foreign citizens were taken by authorities to their countries’ diplomatic missions in Caracas after their release.
The release of prisoners announced by the Venezuelan government earlier this month has made slow progress.
Human rights group Foro Penal said that 151 political prisoners have been released so far, while their families continue to wait anxiously.
Many relatives of detainees — both well-known and lesser-known — gather and stand guard outside prisons or visit multiple detention centers in an attempt to find out where their loved ones are being held.
The releases came after Maduro was captured in Caracas on January 3 and tried in a New York court on charges of narcoterrorism.
His deputy, Delcy Rodriguez, assumed the presidency temporarily and Venezuela struck a deal with the United States to refine and sell up to 50 million barrels of crude oil trapped in the South American country under U.S. sanctions.
Frustrating the Venezuelan opposition, which says Maduro deprived Gonzalez of the 2024 presidential election, US President Donald Trump appears to be opting to work with Rodriguez and other Maduro allies for now rather than press for a transition.
Human rights organizations still estimate that around 770 people have been detained for political reasons, while authorities say they were legitimately detained for breaking the law.
Prominent figures imprisoned include opposition leader Juan Pablo Guanipa and lawyer Perkins Rocha; both close allies of opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Corina Machado; Freddy Superlano, leader of the opposition party Voluntad Popular; and Javier Tarazona, director of an NGO.
