Venezuela opposition cries foul over ‘suicide’ of politician
CARACAS: The disputed jailhouse death of an opposition councilman, who was arrested on allegations of plotting to kill President Nicolas Maduro, has triggered alarm among many Venezuelans and swift condemnation from several foreign dignitaries.
Venezuela’s government said on Monday that Fernando Alban took his own life by leaping from the 10th floor of the state intelligence agency’s headquarters.
But opposition leaders denied the official version and a few dozen of Alban’s supporters gathered outside the building yelling “Maduro killer!”, contending that he had been murdered.
“There’s no doubt this was an assassination,” said opposition leader Julio Borges in a video from exile in neighbouring Colombia, without providing evidence of his claim.
“The only thing left for this government is torture, violence and destruction.”
Alban, 56, was taken into custody on Friday at Caracas’ international airport upon arriving from New York, according to his lawyer.
He was in the United States accompanying other members of his First Justice party for meetings with foreign dignitaries attending the United Nations General Assembly.
While Venezuelans last year watched as dozens of youths were killed in violent street battles with security forces, the death of activists or government opponents while in state custody is a fate more associated with the far deadlier, right-wing dictatorships that dominated much of South America in the 1970s.
The opposition claims that over 100 Venezuelans opposed to Maduro are being held as “political prisoners”, some for more than four years, with little access to the outside world and their legal rights routinely trampled on. The government denies that they are political prisoners.
Borges, who led the delegation to the UN, said Alban’s wife told him that her husband had been under intense pressure to testify against him in the ongoing probe into the alleged plot in early August to kill Maduro using two drones loaded with explosives.