One of Venezuela’s main opposition leaders and a former presidential candidate has fled the country to seek asylum in Peru. Maracaibo Mayor Manuel Rosales was supposed to appear in court to face corruption charges supposedly from his term as governor of Zulia. Yet Peru's foreign minister said that Rosales entered the country as a tourist and his Peruvian lawyer subsequently claimed that he has sought political asylum.
While Rosales fled to Peru, his allies denounced the charges brought against him; “we've decided, in a definite manner, that he won't present himself for a trial that's been converted into a political instrument," affirmed the head of president of Rosales' party.
According to Reuters, several other Venezuelan figures have previously sought and received asylum abroad. Pedro Carmona- Venezuela’s de facto president during the failed 2002 coup- was granted asylum in Colombia while ex-union leader Carlos Ortega and opposition governor Eduardo Lapi were each given asylum in Peru.
Image- BBC News
Online Sources- Guardian UK, The Latin Americanist, Voice of America, Reuters, LAHT
No comments:
Post a Comment