Venezuela's non-governmental organization FORO Punishment released a list of names of six American men who returned home last week as a result of negotiations led by President Donald Trump.
Four Punishment also announced the identity of Americans who remained unfairly imprisoned by the socialist regime.
Dictator Nicholas Maduro release Six men last week allowed them to return to America with President Trump's presidential envoy for special missions, Richard Grenell. Grenell traveled to Caracas on January 31st to meet Maduro.
The negotiations led to the release of six men and Maduro accept Illegal Venezuelan immigrants and US deportation of members of criminal organizations across the Tren de Aragua border.
At the time of their release, several American outlets had identified one of the men as David Estrella, 62. Spain's Elpais The newspaper identified three of the other six men, Aaron Barrett Logan, Gregory David Velber and David Guttender Guillaume.
Foro Pane, a local NGO that tracks and reports on political prisoners and other individuals detained by the Maduro regime, has confirmed the names of four previously identified men on its list, and has also seen the other two. We identified the American men as Eric Author and Samuel Batista.
Unlike the other four, Auther and Batista are not part of two groups of Americans detained by the Maduro administration September and October “Hacks” to the infrastructure of the Venezuelan state, and other actions, regarding alleged involvement in a suspicious conspiracy to assassinate Maduro.
According to the Maduro administration, which did not provide evidence to demonstrate the charges, the CIA and the Spanish National Intelligence Centre (CNI) were both behind the alleged conspiracy. Neither the Maduro administration, Foro Prison, nor the Venezuelan news outlet have released further information on the circumstances behind the arrests of Author and Batista.
The prison also details that as of Wednesday, February 5th, there are still five Americans and two legal permanent residents remaining incarcerated in Venezuela. Three of them – US Navy Seal Wilmer Jose Castañeda, Jonathan Pagan Gonzalez and Jorge Marcelo Vargas, were arrested on suspicion of involvement in an unproven CIA-CNI plot.
Grenell I said Journalist Megin Kelly wants to return to Caracas this week to save the rest of the imprisoned Americans. Grenell pointed out that Americans are “essentially tied to a really lame accusation,” but as they are accused of planning to assassinate Maduro, some of them He emphasized that it would take time to release the film.
“It's the Venezuelan government's position, and Nicolas Maduro's position was arrested for accusations of terrorism or for an individual who was trying to kill the Venezuelan president or vice president,” Grenell said. Ta.
“What I said very clearly to Nicolas Maduro was, “If there is evidence that they are trying to kill you or the Vice President, they are serious issues that we should absolutely prosecute those individuals. We're with you. We agree to that – but our information doesn't say it, so we need to share it,” he continued.
Grenell not only regained the American hostages “without paying pennies” and “it's really important without trading hostages,” but also agreed that the Maduro administration would receive US deportation flights. I stated.
“They send planes, they pay for it, and I think this is the new standard,” Grenell said.
In an interview, Grenell explained that four men were first brought to their room with them and said there were two other people ordered to clean and shaved. The two men are said to have refused to obey because they had been previously deceived by officials of the Maduro regime. The four who agreed were released, while the other two were “replaced” by the other two Americans. Grenell said taking these two men would be a priority for the Trump administration and still released others.
“They didn't have time to put it all together, so they were wearing their normal clothes and… not blue,” explained Grenell. “It's heartbreaking to think that there are two people who have been released, but once again they thought this was a head fake from the Venezuelan government. They refused to play the game – I don't know It's not that, it's not that, it's not that it's true.”
According to Foro's penalty, the Maduro administration has maintained at least 54 foreign political prisoners as of February 5th. In addition to the remaining five Americans and two legal US residents, the list includes 13 Colombians, 11 Spaniards, 9 Italians and 3 Portuguese people It will be available. Especially.
Christian K. Calzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
