After Guaidó Aide's Detention, U.S. Names Venezuelan Judge, Prosecutors Responsible
After Guaidó Aide's Detention, U.S. Names Venezuelan Judge, Prosecutors Responsible
"They [Maduro’s military] don’t want to turn Guaidó into a martyr, but they’re not above harassing him either," said AS/COA’s Eric Farnsworth to McClatchy.
The State Department has named five Venezuelans it says are responsible for detaining Juan Guaidó’s chief of staff, Roberto Marrero — the latest sign that the U.S. is guiding the international community to take action toward specific individuals in Nicolás Maduro’s inner circle.
U.S. officials named a judge, two prosecutors and two intelligence officials as responsible for Marrero’s detention: Judge Carol Padilla, prosecutors Farid Mora Salcedo and Dinora Bustamante, and SEBIN officials Danny Contreras and Angel Flores...
U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio and experts following the situation in Venezuela said Maduro is using Marrero’s detention to test the international community, particularly Latin American nations that have recognized Guaidó as Venezuela’s legitimate leader but have not imposed sanctions on the same scale as the U.S.
“I think that it’s clear that Maduro is going to do what he can and if he doesn’t get pushback he’s going to do more of it,” said Eric Farnsworth, a former State Department official who is now a vice president of the Council of the Americas in Washington, D.C. “They [Maduro’s military] don’t want to turn Guaidó into a martyr, but they’re not above harassing him either. They’ll shove him in a van and release him two hours later, to let people know they’re watching him and say, ‘By the way, the international community is not going to be your salvation.’ ”
Rubio said Maduro is “testing international response to calculate how and when to arrest Guaidó.”...
