SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele proposed finishing up a prisoner swap with Venezuela on Sunday, suggesting he would alternate Venezuelan deportees from the United States his government has saved imprisoned for what he referred to as “political prisoners” in Venezuela.
In a put up on the social media platform X, directed at President Nicolás Maduro, Bukele listed off numerous members of the family of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained throughout the South American authorities’s electoral crackdown final yr.
“The one cause they’re imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” wrote the self-styled “world’s coolest dictator,” a person who himself has been accused of locking up political opponents.
“Nevertheless, I wish to suggest a humanitarian settlement that features the repatriation of 100% of the 252 Venezuelans who had been deported, in alternate for the discharge and give up of an equivalent quantity (252) of the 1000’s of political prisoners you maintain.”
BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI through Getty Photos
Amongst these he listed had been the son-in-law of former Venezuelan presidential candidate Edmundo González, numerous political leaders looking for asylum within the Argentine embassy in Venezuela, and what he stated had been 50 detained residents from numerous completely different international locations internationally.
Bukele additionally listed the mom of opposition chief María Corina Machado, whose home the political chief has stated was surrounded by Venezuelan police in January.
Bukele stated he would ask El Salvador’s overseas ministry to keep up a correspondence with the Maduro authorities.
Venezuela’s prosecutor’s workplace responded Sunday evening, calling Bukele’s statements “cynical” and referred to the Salvadoran chief as a “neofascist.”
It demanded Bukele’s authorities present the Venezuelan authorities with a listing of the individuals detained in addition to their authorized standing and medical experiences.
“The therapy obtained by Venezuelans in the US and El Salvador, constitutes a severe violation of worldwide human rights legislation and constitutes a criminal offense towards humanity,” it stated within the assertion.
PEDRO MATTEY through Getty Photos
The proposal comes as El Salvador has come below sharp worldwide scrutiny for accepting Venezuelans and Salvadorans deported by the Trump administration, which accused them of being alleged gang members with little proof.
Deportees are locked up in a “mega-prison” know because the Terrorism Confinement Heart (CECOT), constructed by the Bukele authorities throughout his crackdown on the nation’s gangs.
Controversy has solely continued after it was revealed {that a} Maryland father married to a U.S. citizen, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, was deported by mistake. The U.S. Supreme Courtroom ordered the U.S. authorities to facilitate his return, however there’s no signal of that taking place.
El Salvador’s archbishop José Luis Escobar Alas on Sunday referred to as on Bukele not “to permit our nation to turn into a giant worldwide jail.”
Regardless of the controversy, Bukele maintained that the entire individuals he has saved within the jail had been “a part of a part of an operation towards gangs just like the Tren de Aragua in the US.”
Janetsky reported from Mexico Metropolis.
This model has corrected Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s citizenship standing.
