Venezuela oppn leaders arrested

security officials seized two opposition leaders from their homes in overnight raids, their families said on Tuesday, in what critics of President Nicolas Maduro said was further evidence that he is leading a dictatorship.

Leopoldo Lopez and Antonio Ledezma were both under house arrest, the former for his role in leading street protests against Maduro in 2014 and the latter on charges of plotting a coup.

Their apprehension comes a day after the United States slapped sanctions on unpopular leftist Maduro for a new legislative superbody, the constituent assembly, which was elected on Sunday in a vote boycotted by the opposition.

The new assembly will have powers to rewrite the constitution and supersede other institutions, including the oppositiondominated congress.

Both men had been urging protests against the vote, which they charged was rigged and a naked power grab by Maduro to avoid free and fair elections which he would lose.

“12:27 in the morning: the moment when the dictatorship kidnaps Leopoldo at my house,” Lopez’s wife Lilian Tintori tweeted, posting a video that appeared to show him being led into a vehicle emblazoned with the word Sebin, Venezuela’s intelligence agency.

“Maduro’s dictatorship is on the attack,” said opposition lawmaker Yajaira Forero.

Lopez had been holed up in the military jail of Ramo Verde until last month. REUTERS