Rafael Tudares Bracho, who’s married to Gonzalez’s daughter, was imprisoned shortly earlier than ex-President Nicolas Maduro’s third inauguration.
Printed On 22 Jan 2026
The son-in-law of Venezuelan opposition chief and former presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez has been launched from jail within the South American nation.
The discharge of Rafael Tudares Bracho on Thursday comes as the federal government of interim President Delcy Rodriguez steadily reduces the variety of political prisoners held in Venezuela’s prisons.
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The transfer has been extensively seen as a concession to the administration of United States President Donald Trump, which has saved army belongings deployed off the nation’s coast and threatened Venezuelan officers if they don’t adjust to US calls for.
Rodriguez was sworn into workplace shortly after Trump authorised the abduction of her predecessor, former President Nicolas Maduro, on January 3. Members of the opposition coalition expressed pleasure on the information of Tudares Bracho’s launch.
“After 380 days of unjust and arbitrary detention — having endured greater than a 12 months of the inhumane actuality of enforced disappearance — my husband Rafael Tudares Bracho returned house this morning,” Edmundo Gonzalez’s daughter, Mariana Gonzalez, wrote on the social media platform X.
“It has been a stoic and profoundly tough battle.”
The elder Gonzalez stood in opposition to Maduro within the 2024 presidential election after the opposition’s elected nominee, Maria Corina Machado, was barred from working. Election tallies launched by the opposition and verified by impartial observers confirmed Gonzalez profitable the race, regardless of Maduro’s claims of victory.
Tudares Bracho was arrested in January 2025, simply days earlier than Maduro’s inauguration for a 3rd time period, following what his spouse has referred to as a “sham” 12-hour trial on expenses of “conspiracy, terrorism and legal affiliation”.
His launch comes because the households of Venezuelan prisoners maintain vigils at prisons throughout the nation, demanding the discharge of their family members.
Venezuela’s main prisoner rights organisation, Foro Penal, has verified the discharge of 145 folks it considers to be political prisoners, although no less than 775 extra stay in detention.
Edmundo Gonzalez, who has remained in exile for the reason that 2024 election, posted a video on social media hailing his son-in-law’s freedom and calling for the discharge of different Venezuelans who he stated stay unjustly detained.
“It will be a mistake to cut back this occasion to a private story,” he stated. “There are nonetheless women and men who stay disadvantaged of their liberty for political causes, with out ensures, with out due course of, and in lots of instances, with out reality.”
The Trump administration has to date averted backing opposition figures to steer Venezuela after Maduro’s abduction.
The US has as an alternative emphasised working with Rodriguez and different officers from Maduro’s authorities to make sure stability, whereas it pursues extraction from Venezuela’s huge oil reserves.
Rodriguez, Maduro’s former vp, has walked a cautious line since her boss’s abduction, initially putting a defiant tone along with her home viewers that has steadily morphed into extra conciliatory messaging.
She and Trump held their first name final week, when she additionally met CIA director John Ratcliff. Shortly after, Rodriguez referred to as for the federal government to open its state-run oil trade to extra international improvement, a key Trump demand.
