Venezuela Opposition Politician Slams Caracas 'persecution'

Madrid, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 13th May, 2021 ) :Exiled Venezuelan politician Leopoldo Lopez, who fled to Spain in October, on Thursday lashed out at the government of Nicolas Maduro over a Supreme Court request for his extradition.

Venezuela's top court this week sent an extradition request to Spain for the 50-year-old politician who has been sentenced to 14 years behind bars.

He slammed the move as "illegal".

"Faced with persecution by the Maduro dictatorship, which is now being expressed in an illegal extradition request, I put myself again in the hands of the justice system," he tweeted The former mayor of Chacao, an up-market district of Caracas, Lopez was arrested in 2014 when mass opposition protests began in Venezuela and was jailed a year later for inciting violence against Maduro's government.

He spent several years in prison before being released to house arrest which he escaped in 2019, seeking refuge inside the Spanish ambassador's residence.

He fled to Spain seven months ago.

In its extradition request, the Venezuelan court said it wanted him to serve out the rest of his sentence on Venezuelan soil, indicating it amounted to "eight years, six months, 25 days and 12 hours".

On his Twitter account, Lopez posted a motion he presented to Spain's National Court, which is charged with handling extradition affairs, putting himself at the court's disposition and asking that it refrain from taking "pre-trial measures or (approving) any police action" against him.

"The dictator and his accomplices can rest assured that their actions against me will not work, nor will they stop our fight for Venezuela and its citizens," tweeted Lopez, who lives in Madrid with his wife and three children.

In Spain, any extradition request must be approved by the National Court then ratified by the government, currently led by Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, which has the last word on the matter.