Venezuelas Attorney General Tarek Saab said Monday his office will investigate El Salvadors President Nayib Bukele and two officials over alleged abuse of Venezuelans detained in El Salvador. The probe follows the repatriation of over 250 Venezuelans from El Salvadors CECOT prison in a U.S.-backed exchange.
VenezuelaAttorney General Tarek Saab said on Monday that his office will investigate El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele and two other officials for the alleged abuse of Venezuelans who were detained in the Central American country.
More than 250 Venezuelans held in El Salvador's notorious CECOT prison returned to Venezuela on Friday, under the terms of a prisoner exchange agreed with the United States.
Detainees sufferedhuman rightsabuses ranging from sexual abuse to beatings, were denied medical care or treated without anesthesia and given food and water that made them ill, Saab said at a press conference.
As well as Bukele, Venezuela will investigateEl Salvador's Justice Minister Gustavo Villatoro and Head of Prisons Osiris Luna Meza, Saab said, after showing videos of former detainees recounting torture and showing injuries - including a missing molar, bruising and scars - they said were the result of the abuse.
Bukele's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and Reuters was not able to immediately confirm the assertions made in the videos. Two of those shown speaking were identifiable as former detainees in CECOT.
Late on Monday, Bukele posted about the return on social media but did not comment on the abuse allegations.
"The Maduro regime was satisfied with the swap deal; that's why they accepted it," he said on X. "Now they scream their outrage, not because they disagree with the deal but because they just realized they ran out of hostages from the most powerful country in the world."
The Venezuelans were sent to El Salvador from the United States in March after US President DonaldTrump invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Actto deport alleged members of the Tren de Aragua gang without normal immigration procedures.
The deportations drew fierce criticism from human rights groups and a legal battle with the Trump administration. Family members and lawyers of many of the men deny they had gang ties.
The former detainees arrived near Caracas on Friday, where some reunited with their families, but they have not yet returned to their own homes.
"I can't stop thinking of the hunger my son went through," Yajaira Fuenmayor, the mother of former El Salvador detainee Alirio Guillermo Belloso, said on Sunday afternoon from her home in Maracaibo.
"I have a salad ready, some grilled arepas (traditional corn cakes) because he loves them, and there is fish in the refrigerator to fry."
The government has said the men will be medically evaluated and interviewed before being released. It has always said the El Salvador detentions were illegal and that only seven of the men had serious criminal records.
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POLITICAL PRISONERS FREED
The Venezuelan opposition has regularly critiqued the government of PresidentNicolas Madurofor holding activists and others in similar conditions within Venezuela.
The US said last week that 80 Venezuelans would be released from Venezuelan jails as part of the swap, which also freed 10 Americans held in Venezuela.
Forty-eight Venezuelan political prisoners have so far been released, legal rights advocacy group Foro Penal said earlier on Monday on X.
"We regret the absence of an official list that allows us to verify with more precision," the group said, adding that some lists in circulation have included people not classed as political detainees, people who had already been released and even prisoners who have died.
The communications ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment about who is set to be released and whether any of them will be subject to house arrest or other alternatives to detention.
The main opposition coalition in Venezuela has cheered the release of the prisoners.
But the coalition said on Sunday nearly 1,000 people remain jailed in Venezuela for political reasons and 12 others have been arrested in recent days, in what it called a "revolving door" for political prisoners.
(FRANCE 24 with REUTERS)
Originally published on France24
