Albares demands “immediate release” of Spaniards held in Venezuela

Madrid., The Minister of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation, José Manuel Albares, called this Monday for the “immediate release” of the two Spaniards “unfairly detained” by Venezuela and asked the EU partners for their solidarity with this case.

The situation in Venezuela will once again figure in the meeting that the EU Foreign Ministers are going to hold this Monday in New York, on the margins of the UN General Assembly, at the request of Spain, as explained by Albares before the start. of it.

The head of diplomacy has indicated that he will take advantage of the meeting to raise with his European colleagues the “unjustifiable situation” of the two Spaniards, “unjustly detained and who must be released immediately” and to ask for their “solidarity.”

The Venezuelan Minister of the Interior, Diosdado Cabello, announced on September 14 that Andrés Martínez Adasme, 32, and José María Basoa Valdovinos, 35, had been detained in Puerto Ayacucho within the framework of a plot orchestrated by the opposition and which aimed to assassinate the president, Nicolás Maduro, and other Chavista leaders.

According to Caracas, both were linked to the CNI, something that the government has denied at all times, ensuring that they did not work for any public organization. Their families reported that they lost track of them in Inírida (Colombia) on September 2 when they were heading to Puerto Ayacucho and filed a report for their disappearance with the Ertzaintza on September 9.

The minister indicated last Friday that the government still had no official confirmation about the identity of the detainees and the place where they were located despite having expressly requested it, in accordance with the Vienna Convention, to the Venezuelan Foreign Minister, Yvan Gil. in the conversation they had three days before.

Precisely, the Venezuelan Foreign Minister, like Albares, is already in New York, where he will be in charge of speaking before the General Assembly on behalf of Venezuela. For the moment, Foreign Affairs has not indicated whether a meeting between the two is planned, which in principle should coincide at the informal EU-Celac ministerial meeting.

In addition, Albares is planning a four-way meeting with the foreign ministers of Mexico, Colombia and Brazil to address the situation in Venezuela, as reported by his department.