Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro Moros announced Monday that he was keeping Vladimir Padrino López as Defense Minister but was otherwise making a major reshuffle within the Bolivarian Armed Forces' brass, including the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the General Directorate of Military Counterintelligence (DGCIM) and the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service (Sebin). Padrino López has been Defense Minister since October 2014.
The Venezuelan government was accused of committing crimes against humanity in a report published on Wednesday by a United Nations-backed fact-finding mission.
Venezuelan secret service agents have raided the offices of opposition leader Juan Guaidó while he is on a visit to the UK. Footage showed hooded and armed officers from the Sebin service outside the building in Caracas.
Venezuela's largest refinery complex has been hit by a power outage, at a time of acute fuel shortages in parts of the crisis-torn oil producer, an opposition lawmaker said on Sunday.
Venezuelan security forces prevented opposition lawmakers from entering the parliament building for a session on Tuesday, a week after the top court stripped several lawmakers of their immunity amid a political crisis in the South American country.
The intelligence of Nicolás Maduro's regime detained Edgar Zambrano, vice president of the National Assembly (AN) of Venezuela, on Wednesday, after having supported the military uprising on April 30 against the authoritarian mandatory in the framework of the final phase of Operation Freedom, led by Parliament’s president, Juan Guaidó.
Luis Carlos Diaz, a Venezuelan journalist who is an expert in networks and critical of the Nicolás Maduro regime, was arrested on Monday, without capture order, by the Bolivarian Intelligence Service (SEBIN) after leaving his radio program, denounced his wife and colleague Naky Soto. On Tuesday, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, referred to the arrest and asked the authorities for “urgent access” for her technical mission in Venezuela to Díaz.
The National Union of Workers of the Press (SNTP) of Venezuela reported that reporters from the Spanish international agency EFE who were detained by the National Intelligence Service (SEBIN) in Caracas will be deported despite fulfilling the necessary papers to carry out his journalistic work.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed on Monday, through a statement, its “deep concern” regarding the “serious institutional crisis” and the “acts of intimidation” that led to the arrest and subsequent release of the president of the National Assembly of Venezuela, Juan Guaidó , by officials of the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service (Sebin).
Officials of the Bolivarian Service of National Intelligence (Sebin) retained the deputy Juan Guaidó, President of the National Assembly (AN) and Venezuela’s President-in-charge, when he was going to an open Parliament hall in the north of the country. Minutes later, the parliamentarian was released and attended to the event with a wounded hand and ensuring that the Armed Forces do not want Nicolás Maduro, president considered de facto by the Parliament and part of the international community.