Venezuelan court grants arrest warrant for Maduro's rival

CARACAS

AFP FILE- Venezuelan opposition presidential candidate for the Plataforma Unitaria Democratica party, Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, poses for a picture during an event with the Voluntad Popular opposition party in Caracas on May 23, 2024

A Venezuelan court granted an arrest warrant on Sept. 2 for opposition presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, who claims to have rightfully won July elections that authorities awarded to incumbent Nicolas Maduro.

The court, the prosecutor's office said on Instagram, had granted its request for a warrant for Gonzalez Urrutia for "serious crimes."

The office had earlier published its request to the court on social media, in which it listed the alleged crimes that stem from the opposition's insistence that Maduro and his allies stole the July 28 presidential vote.

Venezuela's National Electoral Council (CNE), most of whose members are friendly to 61-year-old Maduro, declared him reelected to a third six-year term, an outcome disputed by the opposition and much of the international community.

The United States, the European Union and several Latin American countries have refused to recognize the result without seeing detailed voting results.

The CNE has said it cannot publish the records as hackers had corrupted the data, though observers have said there was no evidence of that.

Gonzalez Urrutia, a retired diplomat who replaced opposition leader Maria Corina Machado on the ballot at the last minute, has been in hiding since shortly after the election.

Maduro has called for his imprisonment and that of Machado, who was barred by Venezuelan institutions from seeking election on charges widely dismissed as trumped up.

She, too, has been mostly in hiding since the vote, though she has led several organized protests against Maduro.