CARACAS, (Reuters) – Venezuela has arrested a former defence minister who is openly critical of President Hugo Chavez, an official said yesterday, days after an opposition leader charged with corruption went into hiding.
Chavez critics have accused the socialist leader of using the justice system to pursue critics of his government, which faces a budget crunch this year as the nation’s oil income shrinks.
Venezuela’s chief military prosecutor said Raul Baduel, who led an operation to rescue Chavez from a bungled coup attempt in 2002, was arrested to prevent him from fleeing to avoid being tried on charges of illicit enrichment.
“Enough elements of proof have appeared … and an arrest order was requested,” the prosecutor, Ernesto Cedeno, said in an interview with state television.
Manuel Rosales, the most visible face of the country’s opposition and mayor of the second city of Maracaibo, went into hiding this week to avoid political persecution as he faces charges of illicit enrichment, according to opposition leaders. While campaigning for allies in elections last year, Chavez last year called Rosales a thief and a drug trafficker and said: “I am determined to put Manuel Rosales in jail.” Baduel was a close confidant of Chavez for years but broke with him in 2007 after Chavez proposed a broad constitutional overhaul that would have expanded his power. He accused Chavez of concentrating power and weakening the nation’s democracy.
