A prominent leader of Venezuela’s opposition, whose arrest has drawn international condemnation, will remain in jail as he awaits trial on charges of inciting violence at anti-government demonstrations.
A judge’s ruling before dawn on Thursday followed marathon deliberations lasting three days in which Leopoldo Lopez’s attorneys argued that the former mayor was being hounded for his political beliefs.
Mr. Lopez, 43, is the head of the combative Popular Will party. Before turning himself in to authorities in February, he had been spearheading a movement to force President Nicolas Maduro’s resignation.
Authorities ordered his arrest after three people were killed on February 12, during clashes between security forces and anti-government protesters that took place after peaceful demonstrations ended. At least 42 people have been killed on both sides in three months of unrest.
If convicted, the Harvard University-educated politician could face up to more than 13 years in jail.
Mr. Maduro’s arrest of his opponents has drawn widespread criticism abroad, with Amnesty International calling the charges against Mr. Lopez a “politically motivated attempt to silence dissent” at a time of mounting frustration with 57 per cent inflation and record food shortages.
Each day of the preliminary hearing began for Mr. Lopez around 4 a.m., when he was woken in his cell at a military prison outside Caracas and taken under heavy police escort to a downtown courtroom, where proceedings lasted late into the night. Journalists and Mr. Lopez’s wife were barred from attending the hearing.
Even as the government has been pressing its cases against Mr. Lopez, it has launched what appears to be a new legal battle against another fierce opponent, ousted lawmaker Maria Corina Machado.
On Wednesday, Attorney General Luisa Ortega Diaz said Ms. Machado and two other opposition politicians had been summoned to testify in an investigation of an alleged U.S.-backed plot to assassinate Mr. Maduro. Ms. Machado said she had yet to receive the notice and it wasn’t clear from the attorney general’s remarks if she herself was under investigation.
The government last week released what it said were recent e-mails by Ms. Machado in which she discusses the need to “annihilate” Mr. Maduro and boasts of having the support of a senior State Department official who is now the U.S. ambassador to Colombia. Ms. Machado, who was stripped of her seat in Congress after denouncing Mr. Maduro at the Organization of American States, has denied the charges and said the government is fabricating evidence in a bid to intimidate her.
The Democratic Unity alliance, which in May froze talks with the government to ease tensions, has conditioned its return to the negotiating table on Mr. Lopez’s release.
