Delcy Rodríguez confirms the granting of a safe-conduct pass “for the sake of tranquillity and political peace”
Venezuelan opposition leader Edmundo González, the main rival of President Nicolás Maduro in the presidential elections on 28 July, has left Venezuela for Spain as a political asylum seeker, the governments of both countries have reported.
“Edmundo González has taken off from Caracas to Spain on a Spanish Air Force plane. The Spanish Government has arranged the diplomatic and material means necessary for his transfer, carried out at his request,” reads the statement published by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The head of the portfolio, José Manuel Albares, has confirmed this information on his account on the social network X, where he has reiterated the “commitment” of the Spanish authorities “to the political rights and physical integrity of all Venezuelans.”
Venezuela’s executive vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, also announced that González Urrutia had left the country with a safe-conduct pass granted “for the sake of political peace and tranquility.”
“Today, September 7, opposition citizen Edmundo González Urrutia left the country, who having voluntarily taken refuge in the Embassy of the Kingdom of Spain in Caracas for several days, requested that government to process political asylum,” she said on her Instagram account.
The Venezuelan authorities granted the safe-conduct pass to the opposition member after having maintained the “relevant contacts” with the Spanish Government and “once the extremes of the case had been fulfilled and in compliance with international law.” The vice president defended that this action “reaffirms the respect” of the Venezuelan authorities for international law.
ARREST WARRANT
Edmundo González was the subject of an arrest warrant issued at the request of the Prosecutor’s Office, which had summoned him on three occasions as part of an investigation into alleged crimes linked to the publication on the Internet of documentation that would prove Maduro’s defeat and dismantle the data of the National Electoral Council (CNE).
González, a 74-year-old former diplomat, remained in an unknown location, “protected” in the words of other opposition leaders, and did not participate in the mobilization called by the dissidents on August 28, which was attended by his partner María Corina Machado.
Other Venezuelan opposition leaders already reside in Spain, such as the former mayor of Caracas Antonio Ledezma or the member of Voluntad Popular Leopoldo López, who escaped from Caracas in October 2020 after taking refuge in the Spanish Embassy.
