Latest news with #politicalprisoners
Daily Mail
16 hours ago
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Triple murderer among 10 inmates released back to the US as part of prisoner swap with Venezuela
A triple murderer was among the 10 prisoners sent back to the US as part of a deal between the State Department and Venezuela. Dahud Hanid Ortiz, 55, was sentenced to 30 years in prison in Caracas last year after he killed three people in Madrid in 2016. He was one of the American citizens flown to Texas on Friday as part of a deal between the White House and the Nicolas Maduro regime in Venezuela. The Trump administration said the Americans had been political prisoners in the country, with Secretary Marco Rubio saying: 'Every wrongfully detained American in Venezuela is now free and back in our homeland.' But the Venezuelan NGO Foro Penal warned that one of them was a murderer, not a dissident, as reported by El Pais. It is not clear if Ortiz was transferred to a prison after landing in Texas last week. Daily Mail has reached out to the State Department for comment on this story. After the prisoner swap, Venezuelan regime leader Diosdado Cabello appeared to troll the US, saying: 'We handed over some murderers for you.' Ortiz was born in Venezuela, but became a naturalized US citizen after serving in Iraq. He was arrested in Caracas in 2018 after he fled Spain following the murders. Spanish police said Ortiz meant to kill his ex-wife's new boyfriend, lawyer Víctor Joel Salas, but instead killed the wrong man and two law clerks at a law firm. Salas told Spanish media he feels betrayed after Ortiz was sent to the US. 'Both my family and I feel deceived, betrayed, and frustrated,' he said. Venezuela on Friday released 10 jailed American citizens and permanent residents in exchange for scores of migrants deported by the United States to El Salvador months ago under the Trump administration's immigration crackdown. Aside from Ortiz, the Americans were among dozens of people, including activists, opposition members and union leaders, that Venezuela's regime took into custody in its brutal campaign to crack down on dissent over the last year. 'Every wrongfully detained American in Venezuela is now free and back in our homeland,' Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement in which he thanked El Salvador president Nayib Bukele. Bukele said El Salvador had handed over all the Venezuelan nationals in its custody. Maritza Osorio Riverón was Ortiz' third victim. Spanish police said Ortiz meant to kill his ex-wife's new boyfriend but targeted the wrong man and two assistants at a law firm Central to the deal were more than 250 Venezuelan migrants freed by El Salvador, which in March agreed to a $6 million payment from the Trump administration to house them in its notorious prison. That arrangement drew immediate blowback when Trump invoked an 18th century wartime law, the Alien Enemies Act, to quickly remove the men that his administration had accused of belonging to the violent Tren de Aragua street gang, teeing up a legal fight that reached the Supreme Court. The administration did not provide evidence to back up those claims. The Venezuelans had been held in a mega-prison known as the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, which was built to hold alleged gang members in Bukele's war on the country's gangs. Human rights groups have documented hundreds of deaths as well as cases of torture inside its walls. Photos and videos released by El Salvador's government on Friday showed shackled Venezuelans sitting in a fleet of buses and boarding planes surrounded by officers in riot gear. One man looked up and pointed toward the sky as he climbed aboard a plane, while another made an obscene gesture toward police. One of the men is reportedly Andry Hernández Romero, a makeup artist who fled Venezuela last year and was taken into Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody at a border crossing in San Diego before eventually being flown to El Salvador. Maduro described Friday as 'a day of blessings and good news for Venezuela.' He called it 'the perfect day for Venezuela.' The release of the Venezuelans, meanwhile, is an invaluable win for Maduro as he presses his efforts to assert himself as president despite credible evidence that he lost reelection last year.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Vodka Toasts With the Dictator of Belarus: How Diplomacy Gets Done in Trump 2.0
A bus carrying 14 political prisoners with bags over their heads hurtled through the lush Belarusian countryside one morning last month, its destination unknown. Five years after President Alexander Lukashenko launched an unsparing crackdown on dissent in the former Soviet nation, some of the captives feared they were about to be executed. Among the group was the prominent dissident Siarhei Tsikhanouski whose wife, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, became the face of the Belarusian opposition movement after his arrest in 2020. As the bus approached its destination, their minders from the Belarusian security services — which still goes by its Soviet name the KGB — removed the bags from their heads but told them to keep their eyes fixed on the floor. 'We kept looking ahead all the same,' said Ihar Karnei, a Belarusian journalist who was among the group and had been imprisoned for two years. 'We were interested: Where were they taking us?' The bus pulled up to a field not far from Belarus' border with Lithuania. The door of the van flew open, and they received a surprising greeting: 'President Trump sent me to take you home.' The man speaking to the bewildered prisoners was John Coale, one of President Donald Trump's lawyers and now a deputy special envoy to Ukraine. It took a moment for the reality of what was happening to sink in. 'They were terrified,' Coale recalled in an interview with POLITICO Magazine. 'Opening that door and getting them to realize that 'You are free' was quite a moment.' The prisoner release, a goodwill gesture by the Belarusian leader, marked the continuation of a cautious diplomatic opening between the United States and Belarus. The fraught relationship between the two countries came to a standstill in 2020 when protests against rigged elections were met with mass arrests and thousands of people were swept into the country's vast prison system. But the release also wouldn't have happened without Coale's efforts to forge a relationship with Lukashenko, including over a long lunch with vodka toasts. 'I did two shots, didn't throw up, but did not do a third one,' said Coale. The episode offers a window into the highly personalistic way in which foreign policy gets done during Trump's second term in office, as the president has tapped a slew of close friends and allies to serve as his envoys and implement his agenda abroad. Critics have balked at their lack of experience; after all, they smirk, can real estate magnate Steve Witkoff really lead negotiations to conclude Russia's war on Ukraine, tackle Iran's nuclear program and end Israel's war in Gaza? But the envoys bring the prospect of a direct line to the president and the chance to bypass State Department bureaucracy. They are also free to say and do things that traditional U.S. diplomats might not be able to. 'It's sort of easier to have an eye-to-eye conversation with the president's right hand,' said Artyom Shraibman, a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Dispatching the national security advisor or secretary of State (currently Marco Rubio in both cases), could be seen as a full legitimization of Belarus' isolated president, said Franak Viacorka, chief of staff to Tsikhanouskaya, the opposition leader. 'But if we speak about envoys — an envoy's task is to make deals, to solve crises,' he said. Coale's adventures in Belarus began with a call from the State Department in late April with a special request. Was he willing to go to Minsk to meet with Lukashenko, a man often described as Europe's last dictator? 'Fine,' said Coale. Could he fly out the next day? 'Not fine,' he replied. 'But I did it anyway.' The 78-year-old Coale is a plainspoken, veteran litigator perhaps best known for helping to broker a $386 billion settlement from Big Tobacco in the late 1990s. He's also had a winding political life; a longtime Democrat, Coale endorsed John McCain in 2008 and befriended Sarah Palin, before backing Democrat Martin O'Malley's 2016 presidential bid. In 2021, he led Trump's longshot lawsuit against social media companies, accusing them of censorship. 'The woke stuff has moved me to the right,' he said in one interview. He first met Trump some 20 years ago through his wife Greta Van Susteren, the former Fox News host who has interviewed the president on numerous occasions. Days after the call, Coale and a handful of U.S. diplomats crossed the border from Lithuania into Belarus, stopping on a country road to swap out the diplomatic license plates on their vehicles so as not to attract attention. They arrived at Independence Palace, Lukashenko's residence in central Minsk which, with its glass facade and swooping metal roof, is the size of a small airport terminal. 'It's so big that Tom Brady couldn't throw a pass from one end of the lobby to the other,' Coale said. The imposing complex on the capital's Victory Avenue was built as a symbol of the country's independence, according to the website of the Belarusian sovereignty was always tenuous. One of Russian President Vladimir Putin's closest allies, Lukashenko has long relied on subsidies from Moscow to prop up his ailing economy. In 2022, Belarus was used as a staging ground for Russian troops in their full-scale assault on Ukraine which further cemented his alienation from the West. Lukashenko has ruled Belarus since 1994, preserving many of the institutions and habits of the country's Soviet past. He has proven skilled at playing Russia and the West off against each other, flirting with Washington and Brussels to get Putin's attention or secure relief from economic sanctions imposed on the country. Political prisoners have often been used as a bargaining chip. In 2015, Lukashenko released all those deemed wrongfully detained, prompting Europe and America to lift some sanctions. The reprieve was to be short-lived. Over 5,000 people have been convicted of politically motivated charges over the past five years, according to the Belarusian human rights organization Vyasna, and some 1,150 remain in prison. Trump has made freeing wrongfully detained Americans a priority of his foreign policy, creating an opening for authoritarian leaders like Lukashenko to get his attention. Within a week of Trump's inauguration in January, Belarus unilaterally released U.S. citizen Anastasia Nuhfer from prison. 'Lukashenko is afraid of Trump,' said Viacorka. '[He] knows very well how to deal with ordinary politicians, but he doesn't have a clue how to deal with these strong and unpredictable leaders like Trump.' Three more political prisoners were released in February, after Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Chris Smith quietly travelled to Belarus, becoming the most senior U.S. official to visit the country in over five years. By April, they were on the cusp of getting another American citizen released and dispatched Coale in a bid to seal the deal. Over a long lunch in the palace, Coale was tasked with getting to know the garrulous Belarusian leader. 'They told me to charm him. To yuck it up with him, so I did that,' he said. '[Lukashenko] brought up stuff about the State Department and I said, 'Yeah all they want to do is blah blah blah,' so he loved that.' Lukashenko struck Coale as smart, savvy. 'He does want better relations with the United States,' Coale said, adding that the Belarusian leader seemed keen to play a role in negotiations regarding the war in Ukraine. At some point vodka — Lukashenko's own personal brand — was brought out and the toasts commenced. The Belarusian president offered a toast to Trump. Smith, the State Department official, nudged Coale to reciprocate, as is customary in the region. Coale followed suit with his own toast to Lukashenko, and soon, he began to worry about his stomach. As the afternoon wore on there were more toasts, and while there was little talk of politics, the two men got to know each other. A relationship was developing. 'It was all fun,' Coale said. Lukashenko seems to have agreed. Hours later, the American delegation got what they had come for as the Belarusian authorities handed over Youras Ziankovich, a naturalized U.S. citizen who was arrested in Moscow in 2021 and accused of plotting a coup against Lukashenko. The U.S. government deemed him wrongfully detained earlier this year. Discussions continued behind the scenes into the summer and by June, another prisoner release was set in motion. When she awoke on the morning of Saturday June 21, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya had little idea that she was about to be reunited with her husband, Siarhei. A popular YouTube blogger, he was swiftly arrested after attempting to run against Lukashenko in the 2020 presidential elections. Tsikhanouskaya, a soft-spoken former teacher, took up her husband's mantle after his arrest and was herself quickly forced into exile in Lithuania, becoming the most recognizable face of the Belarusian opposition. For five years she has shuttled between global capitals to raise awareness about her country's political prisoners, often carrying a folder bearing a photograph of her husband. On the morning her husband was released, Tsikhanouskaya was flying back from Poland to the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius. She knew that Trump's special envoy to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, had been in Belarus the night before with Coale and that negotiations about a prisoner release were underway. She speculated with her chief of staff, Viacorka, who might be released but didn't dare expect her husband would be included. Having been held without access to anyone on the outside for over two years, Siarhei was on a shortlist of some 200 prisoners deemed a priority for release by Belarusian human rights defenders on humanitarian grounds. The majority of the 14 people who were about to be released were citizens of other countries who had been swept up in the crackdown, or, had some kind of affiliation with the West. It wasn't until the morning of the release that Coale learned the final details of the prisoners to be freed. As Tsikhanouskaya made her way back to Vilnius, the bus carrying her husband and 13 other political prisoners made its way to the Belarusian border with Lithuania, after the KGB handed them over to Coale and representatives from the State Department. By the time the now-former prisoners made it to the border, it was hours since they had been fed. Many were gaunt after years of meager prison rations. Siarhei, once a bear of man, emerged from prison unrecognizable with hollow cheeks. 'For some reason, in one of our cars was a whole basket of little Tootsie Rolls,' said Coale, which they passed around the group. As they waited to be processed into the country, Coale and the other diplomats passed their cellphones around so people could call their loved ones and let them know that they had been released. 'Nobody had any idea this was happening,' he said. In the Vilnius airport, Tsikhanouskaya received a call from her husband, with whom she hadn't had any contact in over two years. 'When I heard the voice of my husband on the phone, it was a huge surprise,' she said. He told her: 'My dear, I am free.' While Trump's efforts to broker an end to the war in Ukraine have run headlong into Putin's intransigence, Tsikhanouskaya hopes that her country could offer the diplomatic victory that Trump craves so dearly. 'Belarus can be a success story for President Trump,' she said. '[A] free, independent Belarus is in the interest of the USA as well.' Lukashenko also senses an opportunity to return to relevance as the U.S. president seeks to strike a deal between Russia and Ukraine, said Shraibman of the Carnegie Endowment. 'He wants to be relevant to the peace process. He wants to speak to the big guys. This is a prize in itself.' But Belarus isn't Switzerland. 'Lukashenko is so, so deeply dependent on Putin and Russia these days that it is simply beyond the power of the United States, no matter how hard it tries, to decouple these two countries,' Shraibman said. Coale isn't too preoccupied with Lukashenko's diplomatic dance. 'That's for Rubio to worry about.' 'I look at the thing of, can I free some more people,' he told me. 'And if it plays into my purpose and what I'm trying to do, I don't care.' Solve the daily Crossword
Times
5 days ago
- Politics
- Times
US swaps El Salvador inmates for Americans held in Venezuela
A prisoner swap has led to the release of more than 230 Venezuelans that were deported in March by the Trump administration to a notorious jail in El Salvador. The group was flown on Friday to Venezuela in exchange for ten US citizens and permanent residents held by the regime of President Maduro. About 80 Venezuelan political prisoners are also understood to have been released. The deal was the result of months of secret negotiations between the governments of the United States, Venezuela and El Salvador. 'Today, we have handed over all the Venezuelan nationals detained in our country,' President Bukele of El Salvador posted on X. He alleged that all those released were linked to a Venezuela gang, the Tren de Aragua, a claim which is disputed. The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, confirmed the US side of the arrangement, posting on X: 'Thanks to @POTUS's leadership, ten Americans who were detained in Venezuela are on their way to freedom.' The Venezuelans were deported on March 15 to El Salvador's notorious Cecot 'terrorism confinement centre' by the Trump administration. It used an 18th century legislation, the Alien Enemies Act, which was originally designed to rid the country of French spies, to fast-track the process. • El Salvador signs deal to house deported US prisoners in mega-jail A last-minute attempt to block the deportation flights in March by a US judge was ignored by President Trump. The president also brushed aside investigations by American news networks that revealed that at least 75 per cent of the 238 detainees had no criminal records in either the US or Venezuela. Among those deported by the US were also several Salvadorans, including Kilmar Abrego García, a man the US government later admitted it had mistakenly included in the group. Human rights agencies have condemned conditions at Cecot, Bukele's flagship prison and a symbol of his zero-tolerance policy towards gang members. Up to 100 prisoners are held in each cell in a jail that is designed to hold 40,000. Inmates are given no right to appeal and all visits are prohibited. Bukele's security strategy is, however, immensely popular in El Salvador, where the murder rate has plummeted. The central American nation is now ranked by the US state department as safer for visitors than the UK or France. • Trump takes aim at 'weak and ineffective' judges over migrants The US government is understood to have paid El Salvador between $6 million and $15 million to hold its prisoners, leading to accusations that Bukele was operating a 'gulag' for foreigners. In Venezuela, families of the Venezuelans imprisoned in El Salvador had been lobbying for months for their release. Many had organised regular marches in Caracas. The Maduro regime, widely accused of its own human rights abuses, had seized on the issue, using it to argue to its own people that the Trump and Bukele governments were the real criminals. It initially angrily rejected the offer, first made in April by Bukele, and said it would not engage in any form of prisoner swap. 'Just free them unconditionally,' said Maduro on state television shortly after the proposal was presented. • Inside El Salvador, the brutal prison state run by a Bitcoin bro Announcing the prisoner swap on Friday, the Venezuelan government said it was 'satisfied' that a deal had been made, describing the Cecot prison as a 'concentration camp'. It also claimed it had paid a 'high price' by releasing the imprisoned Americans, alleging — without giving any details — that the individuals had threatened Venezuelan national security. For his part, Bukele had no kind words for the Maduro regime. 'This operation is the result of months of negotiations with a tyrannical regime that had long refused to release one of its most valuable bargaining chips: its hostages,' he said. 'However, thanks to the tireless efforts of many officials from both the United States and El Salvador, and above all, thanks to Almighty God, it was achieved.'
Telegraph
5 days ago
- Politics
- Telegraph
Alleged Venezuelan gangsters released from mega jail in US prisoner swap
El Salvador has sent home 252 Venezuelans from its notorious Cecot jail in a prisoner swap for 10 US citizens. Nayib Bukele, the country's president, said in a post on X that those freed in Venezuela were en route to El Salvador from where they would continue 'their journey home'. 'Today, we have handed over all the Venezuelan nationals detained in our country, accused of being part of the criminal organisation Tren de Aragua (TDA). Many of them face multiple charges of murder, robbery, rape, and other serious crimes. 'As was offered to the Venezuelan regime back in April, we carried out this exchange in return for a considerable number of Venezuelan political prisoners, people that regime had kept in its prisons for years, as well as all the American citizens it was holding as hostages,' he said. Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, confirmed the release of '10 Americans who were detained in Venezuela' and thanked Mr Bukele for his help in securing the agreement. 'The Trump administration continues to support the restoration of democracy in Venezuela,' said Mr Rubio. 'The regime's use of unjust detention as a tool of political repression must end,' he said. The State Department posted on social media a picture of what it said were 10 Americans freed from Venezuelan prisons. The men, in matching dark blue T-shirts and jeans, together held up an American flag. The Venezuelan government confirmed that 252 Venezuelans held in El Salvador had been freed, calling the maximum security prison where they have been held, Centre for the Confinement of Terrorism or Cecot, a 'concentration camp'. The Venezuelans were sent to El Salvador in March after Donald Trump invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged members of the Tren de Aragua gang without going through normal immigration procedures. Family members of many of the Venezuelans and their lawyers deny they had gang ties, and say they were not given a chance to contest the Trump administration's allegations in court. Venezuela's government has always decried the detention of its citizens as a violation of human rights and international law. But the government's critics say the country holds activists and opposition figures in similar conditions in Venezuela.
Arab News
5 days ago
- Politics
- Arab News
Rubio says 10 Americans freed in Venezuela in deal involving El Salvador
WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Friday that Venezuela freed 10 Americans as well as political prisoners in a deal in which El Salvador released Venezuelans deported there by the United States. 'Every wrongfully detained American in Venezuela is now free and back in our homeland,' Rubio said in a statement. Rubio said the State Department and El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele helped secure the agreement that also saw the release of an unspecified number of 'Venezuelan political prisoners and detainees' by the leftist government in Caracas. 'The Trump administration continues to support the restoration of democracy in Venezuela,' said Rubio, a staunch critic of Latin American leftists. 'The regime's use of unjust detention as a tool of political repression must end,' he said. The State Department posted on social media a picture of what it said were 10 Americans freed from Venezuelan prisons. The men, in matching dark blue T-shirts and jeans, together held up an American flag. Rubio said that the deal, which had previously been under discussion, came as El Salvador released the Venezuelans deported by the United States to the Central American country. President Donald Trump had controversially deported the 200-plus migrants to El Salvador, where Bukele has boasted of jailing people for the United States at a discount in a maximum-security prison. Bukele said on X that El Salvador has handed over all the Venezuelans detained in his country. They had been accused of membership in the Tren de Aragua gang, which Trump has designated as a terrorist group as he pursues a sweeping crackdown on undocumented migrants in the United States.
