The Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed this Thursday that there are five Spanish citizens among the prisoners released by the Venezuelan government and that they are already preparing to travel back to Spain in the next few hours.
As confirmed by Albares in RNE, the released Spaniards are José María Basoa, Andrés Martínez Adasme, Miguel Moreno Dapena, Ernesto Gorbe Cardona and the Spanish-Venezuelan Rocío San Miguel.
Basoa and Adasme are the two Basque tourists who were accused of being Spanish agents participating in a plot against Maduro, Dapena is a Canarian sailor and journalist on a treasure hunter who was captured last June while searching for sunken shipwrecks in Venezuelan waters, and Gorbe was accused of having his visa expired.
For her part, the Spanish-Venezuelan Rocío San Miguel was accused of treason and had been locked up in the Helicoide prison for almost two years. She is a defender of Human Rights and president of the organization Citizen Control. She was arrested in February 2024 when she was trying to leave the country.
Albares himself has confirmed that everyone is fine and that they have been able to speak with their families from the ambassador’s residence in Caracas. They are expected to arrive in Spain this Friday.
The Government of Spain confirmed a few months ago that fourteen Spanish citizens, most of them with dual nationality, remained imprisoned for political or arbitrary reasons in Venezuela, and just over an hour later, Foreign Affairs confirmed that five have been released and are already preparing to travel back to Spain.
This “gesture of peace” was announced by the president of the National Assembly, Jorge Rodríguez, who explained that this release of “a significant number of people” is to “consolidate peace and peaceful coexistence” in the country.
Rodríguez also thanked the former president of the Government of Spain, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, for his involvement in the country “for ten years.” “It has been adding all its capabilities to work together for national connivance,” he said, while also thanking the president of Brazil, Lula da Silva, and the Qatari authorities for their involvement in this process.
This gesture comes after a few days ago Nicolás Maduro was captured by the United States authorities and an acting government led by Delcy Rodríguez was formed in Venezuela, to whom Spain asked this week in a note for the immediate release of the Spanish political prisoners in the country.
