Venezuela launches probe against opposition leaders Gonzalez, Machado
Al Jazeera
Opposition leader and presidential candidate face an investigation over their appeal to the army and the police ‘to take the side of the people’.
A criminal investigation has been launched in Venezuela against the opposition’s presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia and its leader Maria Corina Machado for announcing an election winner other than President Nicolas Maduro and allegedly instigating disobedience and insurrection.
Attorney General Tarek William Saab announced the probe on Monday after a written appeal the two opposition members sent hours earlier to the army and the police about Maduro and the demonstrators who have come out in force to defend their votes in the July 28 election.
Saab, in a written announcement posted on X, said the duo “falsely announced a winner of the presidential election other than the one proclaimed by the National Electoral Council, the only body qualified to do so” and they openly incited “police and military officials to disobey the laws”.
While under public pressure to release detailed, precinct-level records backing up its assertion that Maduro won, the National Electoral Council said on Monday it had presented all these records to the Supreme Court for certification, as requested by the president – but not publicly.
