Venezuelan opposition politician Guanipa under house arrest, son says

Feb 10 (Reuters) – Venezuelan opposition politician Juan Pablo Guanipa is under house arrest in the city of Maracaibo, his son Ramon Guanipa said on Tuesday, shortly after the close ally of Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Corina Machado was freed from jail and recaptured.

“I confirm my father, Juan Pablo Guanipa, is in my house in Maracaibo,” his son said in a post on X. “We are relieved to know my family will be reunited soon.”

“My father is still unjustly imprisoned,” Ramon Guanipa added, “because house arrest is still prison and we demand his full freedom and that of all the political prisoners.”

Venezuela’s government has announced a series of prisoner releases amid U.S. pressure after the United States captured President Nicolas Maduro in an attack on Caracas ordered by President Donald Trump. The government denies holding political prisoners and says those jailed have committed crimes.

Juan Pablo Guanipa, a 61-year-old lawyer and politician, was released from detention on Sunday but then rearrested several hours later after speaking to media in Caracas and seeing supporters. Venezuela’s Attorney General’s Office said he was rearrested for allegedly violating the terms of his release.

Ramon Guanipa said his father had been forcibly retaken by unidentified men who put a t-shirt over his head and did not let him lift his head from the floor of the van in which he was transported.

His whereabouts were unknown until his son confirmed on Tuesday that he was in Maracaibo, the capital of the oil-rich state of Zulia, where the entire family is from.

“He has been released from prison but he remains under house arrest,” Ramon Guanipa said. “He cannot make statements, he cannot go out. That is to say, he is less free than he was on Sunday.”

He added that while the second arrest was much more violent than the first, his father was physically well.

Government officials have said nearly 900 of the prisoners have been released, but they have not been clear about when this occurred. Venezuela’s opposition and human rights groups have said for years that the government uses detentions to stamp out dissent.

Guanipa was imprisoned for more than eight months on accusations of leading a terrorist plot, which he has denied. Before that he lived in hiding after the 2024 presidential vote which the opposition says it won, though Maduro claimed victory.

(Reporting by Reuters staff; Editing by Daina Beth Solomon and Will Dunham)