María Corina Machado denounced the kidnapping of a recently released opposition leader

“Urgent. International alert. Heavily armed men, dressed in civilian clothes, arrived in 4 vehicles, and violently took him away. We demand his immediate release“Machado stated in his X account.

The 2025 Nobel Peace Prize winner specified that the kidnapping of the 61-year-old man occurred in an urbanization called Los Chorros de Caracas.

They are son, Ramón Guanipa, demanded proof of his father’s life and his “immediate release.” In a message on X, he reported that he was intercepted by a group of “approximately 10 unidentified people.”

“We announce to the country that our national leader, Juan Pablo Guanipa, has just been kidnapped by repressive forces of the dictatorship while he was moving around,” said Guanipa’s party, Primero Justicia.

Guanipa was released this Sunday, a month after the interim government began releasing political prisoners following the overthrow of Nicolás Maduro and before the Venezuelan Parliament votes on Tuesday a general amnesty law proposed by the interim president Delcy Rodríguez.

This Monday morning, the Venezuelan Prosecutor’s Office reported that it requested the arrest of Guanipa, considering that he violated the conditions of his release hours before. “The Public Ministry remembers that the precautionary measures agreed upon by the courts are conditional on strict compliance with the obligations imposed,” the agency indicated.

In parallel, he asked the court to “adopt the decisions that correspond by law, in safeguarding the criminal process, to move to a regime of house detention.”

Machado, who secretly left Venezuela in December to receive the Nobel Prize and since then his whereabouts have been unknown, celebrated this Sunday not only his release, but also those of Perkins Rocha, 63, and Freddy Superlano, 49, among other leaders.

“Very soon we are going to meet and embrace in a free Venezuela and we will thank these heroes for everything they have given to make Venezuela the country we deserve, may God bless us,” Machado said in an audio in X hours before announcing the disappearance of his collaborator.

Guanipawho was vice president of Parliament, was arrested on May 23, 2025 linked to an alleged conspiracy against the election of governors and deputies to Parliament.

They are last public appearance was on January 9, 2025 to accompany Machado to a rally against Maduro’s new investiture after the July 28, 2024 elections, which the opposition denounced as a fraud.

“I think this has to end with respect for the will of the Venezuelan people,” said Guanipa, one of the biggest critics of Chavismo, when claiming the victory of the opposition in the 2024 presidential elections.

Furthermore, he declared: “On July 28, 2024, the people demonstrated, there was a popular decision. Do we want to respect it? We are going to respect it, that is the basic thing, that is the logical thing. Oh, don’t you want to respect it? Then we are going to an electoral process.”

In 2017, Guanipa was elected governor of the oil-producing state of Zulia, but refused to take the oath of office before the National Constituent Assembly established by Maduro, considering it illegitimate. He was dismissed and new elections were called in the state, the cradle of the Venezuelan oil industry.

He January 8 Venezuela’s interim government announced a process to grant a “significant number” of releases of political prisoners amid pressure exerted by Donald Trump’s government. Relatives and NGOs have since denounced that the releases have occurred in dribs and drabs.

this sundaya few hours after leaving prison, Guanipa and former Caracas councilor Jesús Armasalso released today, They led a caravan of motorcycles and cars that left from the west of Caracas to various prisons in support of relatives of political prisoners.

“Not one, not two, free them all,” shouted activists along with Guanipa and Armas outside a detention center known as Zone 7, west of Caracas, demanding the release of all political prisoners, who number more than 600 according to the NGO Foro Penal.

Previously, the caravan passed through El Helicoide, the headquarters of the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service (Sebin), where relatives of political prisoners have spent the night for a month.