Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares will appear in Congress to explain the asylum process to Venezuelan opponent Edmundo González, diplomatic sources have informed elDiario.es. The minister will request to appear at his own request in Parliament this Monday, a day after the candidate of the Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD) in the July 28 elections landed at the Torrejón de Ardoz military base.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs facilitated the transfer of Edmundo González to Spain, where he requested asylum, on board an armed forces plane. The government announced that it would grant asylum to him and his wife. The process takes place after the Venezuelan justice system surrounded the opposition candidate, who has an arrest warrant after refusing to appear on three phone calls made by the prosecutor’s office to declare that he is under investigation for conspiracy, usurpation of functions, incitement to disobedience. , among other crimes.
“The Spanish government has put in place the diplomatic and material means necessary for his transfer,” they emphasize from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where they emphasize that the process was carried out at the request of Edmundo González himself. In a statement, the Executive reiterated its “commitment to the political rights and physical integrity of Venezuelans, especially political leaders.”
The departure of Edmundo González from Caracas, where he had been staying for two days at the residence of the Spanish ambassador, took place in agreement with the government of Nicolas Maduro. In fact, the announcement took place almost at the same time from Madrid and Caracas.
“Today, September 7, the opponent Edmundo González Urrutia left the country, after voluntarily taking refuge for several days in the Embassy of the Kingdom of Spain in Caracas and requested political asylum from this government. In this sense, once the pertinent contacts between the two governments took place, the extremes of the case were overcome and, in accordance with international legality, Venezuela granted the safe conduct due for the sake of the tranquility and political peace of the country. “said the vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, in a statement published on Instagram.
During his appearance in Congress, Albares will be criticized by the PP, which attacked the asylum granted to Edmundo González, considering that “it does not serve democracy, but rather removes a problem from the dictatorship.” “Sánchez and the corrupt offices of the ZP should save their praise: removing Edmundo González without recognizing him as the legitimate president does not serve democracy, but rather removes a problem from the dictatorship. Cuba would do the same if asked,” the deputy secretary for institutional relations, Esteban González Pons, published on the social network on Sunday.
Podemos also questioned this decision. “The haste of the ‘progressive’ PSOE government to grant asylum to the Venezuelan far-right opposition and it will be a year without breaking diplomatic relations with Israel, a genocidal state that has thousands and thousands of children murdered behind its back. Without words,” party leader Ione Belarra said on X (formerly Twitter). “Eleven months of diplomatic, commercial and arms transit relations with the genocidal state of Israel, but they rush to legitimize the most coup-prone far-right opposition in Latin America. To do what this government is doing, we already have the PP,” MEP Irene Montero said on the same social network.
