Venezuela’s top prosecutor orders the arrest of opposition leader’s ally, hours after his release

Venezuela’s top pros­e­cu­tor said on Mon­day that his of­fice had re­quest­ed the ar­rest of one of the clos­est al­lies of op­po­si­tion leader María Co­ri­na Macha­do, less than 12 hours af­ter his re­lease from a de­ten­tion fa­cil­i­ty as part of a gov­ern­ment move to free those fac­ing po­lit­i­cal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed ac­cu­sa­tions.

The at­tor­ney gen­er­al’s state­ment did not say whether Juan Pablo Gua­ni­pa was re­ar­rest­ed or give in­di­ca­tion of his where­abouts.

The gov­ern­ment had re­leased him along with sev­er­al oth­er promi­nent op­po­si­tion mem­bers on Sun­day fol­low­ing lengthy po­lit­i­cal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed de­ten­tions.

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Tarek William Saab’s of­fice post­ed on so­cial me­dia that it had “re­quest­ed the com­pe­tent court to re­voke the pre­cau­tion­ary mea­sure grant­ed to Juan Pablo Gua­ni­pa, due to his non-com­pli­ance with the con­di­tions im­posed by the afore­men­tioned court.”

It did not elab­o­rate on what con­di­tions Gua­ni­pa, a for­mer gov­er­nor for the op­po­si­tion, vi­o­lat­ed dur­ing the hours he was free, but said au­thor­i­ties were seek­ing house ar­rest.

Gua­ni­pa’s son, Ramón, told re­porters Mon­day that a group of men in three ve­hi­cles in­ter­cept­ed his fa­ther and oth­ers trav­el­ing around 11:45 p.m. Sun­day (Feb­ru­ary 8, 2026) in a neigh­bour­hood in the cap­i­tal, Cara­cas. They were armed with long guns and wore civil­ian clothes and bul­let­proof vests.

Ramón Gua­ni­pa said au­thor­i­ties have not yet no­ti­fied him of his fa­ther’s where­abouts and their de­ci­sion to place him on house ar­rest. He said his fa­ther did not vi­o­late the two con­di­tions of his re­lease — month­ly check-ins with a court and no trav­el out­side Venezuela — and showed re­porters the court doc­u­ment list­ing them.

Pris­on­ers re­leased

The de­vel­op­ment marked the lat­est twist in the po­lit­i­cal tur­moil in Venezuela in the wake of the U.S. mil­i­tary’s seizure on Jan­u­ary 3, 2026, of then-Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cil­ia Flo­res, from a mil­i­tary base com­pound in Cara­cas in a stun­ning op­er­a­tion that land­ed them in New York to face fed­er­al drug traf­fick­ing charges.

The gov­ern­ment of Venezuela’s act­ing Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­dríguez be­gan re­leas­ing pris­on­ers days af­ter she was sworn in and has faced mount­ing pres­sure to free hun­dreds of peo­ple whose de­ten­tions months or years ago have been linked to their po­lit­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ties. The re­leas­es al­so fol­lowed a vis­it to Venezuela of rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the U.N. High Com­mis­sion­er for Hu­man Rights.

Venezue­lan-based pris­on­ers’ rights group Foro Pe­nal con­firmed the re­lease of at least 30 peo­ple on Sun­day (Feb­ru­ary 8, 2026).

Some of those freed Sun­day joined fam­i­lies wait­ing out­side de­ten­tion fa­cil­i­ties for their loved ones. They chant­ed “We are not afraid! We are not afraid!” and marched a short dis­tance.

“I am con­vinced that our coun­try has com­plete­ly changed,” Gua­ni­pa told re­porters af­ter his re­lease. “I am con­vinced that it is now up to all of us to fo­cus on build­ing a free and de­mo­c­ra­t­ic coun­try.”

Gua­ni­pa had spent more than eight months in cus­tody at a fa­cil­i­ty in Cara­cas.

“My fa­ther can­not be a crim­i­nal ... sim­ply for mak­ing state­ments,” Ramón Gua­ni­pa said. “How much longer will speak­ing out be a crime in this coun­try?”

Sev­er­al mem­bers of Macha­do’s po­lit­i­cal or­ga­ni­za­tion were among the re­leased Sun­day, in­clud­ing at­tor­ney Perkins Rocha, and lo­cal or­ga­niz­er María Oropeza who, in 2024, had livestreamed her ar­rest by mil­i­tary in­tel­li­gence of­fi­cers as they broke in­to her home with a crow­bar. Rocha was re­leased to house ar­rest.

“They are ter­ri­fied that Venezue­lan so­ci­ety will mo­bi­lize and ex­press its voice civi­cal­ly,” Macha­do, re­fer­ring to Ro­dríguez’s gov­ern­ment, told re­porters Mon­day in Wash­ing­ton. “But let me tell you some­thing, there’s no go­ing back... What will Juan Pablo be­come now? What will Perkins be­come as a pris­on­er in his own home? A ref­er­ence in this fight.”

Long de­ten­tions for po­lit­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ties

Gua­ni­pa was de­tained in late May and ac­cused by In­te­ri­or Min­is­ter Dios­da­do Ca­bel­lo of par­tic­i­pat­ing in an al­leged “ter­ror­ist group” that was plot­ting to boy­cott that month’s leg­isla­tive elec­tion. Gua­ni­pa’s broth­er Tomás re­ject­ed the ac­cu­sa­tion, and said the ar­rest was meant to crack down on dis­sent.

Ro­dríguez’s gov­ern­ment an­nounced on Jan­u­ary 8, 2026, that it would free a sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of those ar­rest­ed — a cen­tral de­mand of the coun­try’s op­po­si­tion and hu­man rights or­ga­ni­za­tions with back­ing from the Unit­ed States — but fam­i­lies and rights watch­dogs have crit­i­cized au­thor­i­ties for the slow pace of the re­leas­es.

The rul­ing par­ty-con­trolled Na­tion­al As­sem­bly last week be­gan de­bat­ing an amnesty bill that could lead to the re­lease of hun­dreds. The op­po­si­tion and non­govern­men­tal or­ga­ni­za­tions have re­act­ed with cau­tious op­ti­mism as well as with sug­ges­tions and de­mands for more in­for­ma­tion on the con­tents of the pro­pos­al.

Na­tion­al As­sem­bly Pres­i­dent Jorge Ro­dríguez, who is the act­ing pres­i­dent’s broth­er, on Fri­day post­ed a video on In­sta­gram show­ing him out­side a de­ten­tion cen­ter in Cara­cas and say­ing that “every­one” would be re­leased no lat­er than next week, once the amnesty bill is ap­proved.

Del­cy Ro­dríguez, the act­ing pres­i­dent, and Volk­er Türk, the U.N. High Com­mis­sion­er for Hu­man Rights, spoke by phone in late Jan­u­ary. His spokesper­son, Rav­ina Sham­dasani, in a state­ment said he sent a team to the coun­try and “of­fered our sup­port to help Venezuela work on a road map for di­a­logue and rec­on­cil­i­a­tion” in which hu­man rights should be cen­tred. —CARA­CAS, Venezuela (AP)

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Sto­ry by REGI­NA GAR­CIA CANO | As­so­ci­at­ed Press

This sto­ry is part of an on­go­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween The As­so­ci­at­ed Press and FRONT­LINE (PBS) that in­cludes an up­com­ing doc­u­men­tary.