World News | Venezuela orders arrest of exiled MP fighting Maduro

CARACAS, Jan. 10 (AP) — Venezuela’s socialist government has ordered the arrest of three former lawmakers in exile who are at the forefront of renewed efforts to oust President Nicolas Maduro.

Dinorah Figuera leads a team of ll women elected by opposition politicians to lead the National Assembly in the 2015 Vote Commission. The opposition-controlled parliament is widely regarded as the South American country’s newest democratically elected body, despite its five-member five. Its two-year term ends at the end of 2020, and it continues to serve as the symbolic shadow of Maduro’s rubber-stamp National Assembly.

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On Monday, Maduro’s attorney general, Tarek William Saab, announced that prosecutors had ordered the arrest of Figuera and two of her deputies on charges of treason, money laundering and impersonating a public official.

However, the arrest warrant is unlikely to be executed. Like many of Maduro’s opponents, all three women have fled Venezuela in recent years, fearing reprisals. Figuera is a trained surgeon living in Spain.

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In January 2019, the National Assembly voted to stop recognizing Maduro as president after several key opponents were barred from running for him. It then appointed Juan Guaido as the country’s “interim president,” according to the order of succession stipulated in Venezuela’s constitution. More than 60 countries quickly recognized him as Venezuela’s legitimate leader.

Figuera was previously an unknown backbench lawmaker elected alongside Guaidó. She rushed to the forefront of opposition efforts to oust Maduro as part of an internal coup against the embattled Guaidó, who has failed to shake off his grip on power. control, to the dismay of many Venezuelans.

Maduro’s ally, Jorge Rodriguez, head of the pro-government National Assembly, celebrated the announcement of the arrest warrant, calling the 2015 National Assembly a “gang of kleptocrats” as they sought to win control of Venezuela’s vast overseas oil assets, Including the Houston-based Citgo refinery. (Associated Press)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)