Venezuela’s top prosecutor announces criminal probe of opposition leaders

Venezuela’s top prosecutor on Monday announced a criminal investigation against the opposition’s presidential candidate Edmundo González and its leader María Corina Machado over their call on the armed forces to abandon their support for President Nicolás Maduro and to stop repressing demonstrators.

Attorney General Tarek William Saab’s statement tied the investigation directly to a written appeal the two members of the opposition sent hours earlier about Maduro and the demonstrators who have come out in force to defend their votes in the July 28 election.

Saab, in a written announcement posted on the social media site X, said the duo “falsely announced a winner of the presidential election other than the one proclaimed by the National Electoral Council, the only body qualified to do so” and they openly incited “police and military officials to disobey the laws.”

Gonzalez’s and Machado’s written appeal shows the alleged commission of various crimes including usurpation of functions, dissemination of false information to cause fear and conspiracy, Saab said.