Venezuela’s socialist regime arrested opposition politician Juan Pablo Guanipa on Sunday less than 12 hours after his release from prison, where he spent eight months unjustly detained on dubious “terrorism” accusations.
According to a statement from the Venezuelan Public Prosecutor’s Office, Guanipa allegedly violated the terms of his release and will be placed on house arrest. His whereabouts remain unknown at press time.
Guanipa, a former lawmaker, is a close ally of anti-socialist opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate María Corina Machado. He spent ten months in hiding before the Venezuelan regime unjustly arrested him in May 2025. At the time, the Venezuelan regime accused him of being involved in a purported “terrorist” plot against that year’s sham regional and legislative elections.
The politician was released from prison alongside a group of some 30 other political prisoners the regime set free on Sunday morning. Guanipa announced his release in a brief video and said, “There is much to discuss about Venezuela’s present and future, always with the truth at the forefront.”
Moments after his release, Guanipa, accompanied by a group of motorcyclists, went to the vicinity of the Helicoide (“the Helix”), Venezuela’s largest and most infamous torture center, to accompany relatives of the political prisoners who are still in the detention center.
Speaking to reporters outside the Helicoide, Guanipa explained that the only restrictions imposed for his “release” were compulsory appearance before a court every 30 days and a ban on traveling out of the country. Guanipa announced that he would return to the state of Zulia, where he was born.
Just hours afterward, late on Sunday night, Guanipa’s son, Ramón Guanipa, used his father’s social media accounts to denounce that a group of approximately ten armed men intercepted and abducted the politician, alleging that “a silver Corolla, a white Range Rover, and a Renault Symbol” were used by the men that took his father away.
“I want to alert the entire world that my father has been kidnapped again. My father, Juan Pablo Guanipa, was attending an event at 11:45 p.m. when he was ambushed by approximately 10 officials who did not have any form of identification. They pointed their guns at him, were heavily armed, and took my father away,” Guanipa’s son said on a video.
“I demand proof of life immediately and hold the regime responsible for anything that happens to my father. Enough of this repression,” he continued.
The Venezuelan news site El Nacional reported that, hours before his detention, Guanipa said during an interview that he was not prohibited from making public statements.
“No one told me that I had to restrict myself in my public opinions. And I haven’t restricted myself. I have said the things I have said with total respect, but I have to say what I think, and I believe that is the idea behind everything we are experiencing in this country,” Guanipa reportedly said. “In other words, people talk to me about reconciliation, and I agree, but with truth and justice at the forefront.”
Guanipa’s son, Ramón Guanipa, provided further details on his father’s arrest in a press conference Monday morning in Caracas and denounced that his father remains in a condition of forced disappearance since Sunday night. He explained to reporters that his father was abducted when he was attending an activity in Los Chorros, Caracas, when ten armed men in civilian clothing ambushed the politician and his companions.
“He was ambushed by three vehicles. They were hitting the entrance to the house where they were staying, hitting the truck they were traveling in. Faced with the aggressiveness of these people, my father decided to get out and they took him away. They only took my dad,” he explained.
Venezuela’s Public Prosecutor’s Office claimed on Monday that it had requested the court revoke Guanipa’s release on the grounds that he “failed to comply with the conditions imposed by the aforementioned court,” but did not disclose any specific details. The Office also requested that the politician be placed under house arrest.”
The statement concluded:
Finally, the Public Prosecutor’s Office invokes the spirit of the ongoing Democratic Coexistence and Peace Program, as well as the consultation of the Amnesty Law, in order to guarantee the unity and reconciliation of Venezuelans at this historic moment. Venezuela calls for a space for national dialogue within the framework of the Constitution of the Republic.
Last week, at the request of “acting President” Delcy Rodríguez, socialist lawmakers unanimously voted to pass an amnesty bill that will allegedly grant clemency to the regime’s hundreds of political prisoners and to exiled Venezuelan dissidents and politicians living abroad. As per the terms of Venezuela’s legislature, a second debate must take place before the bill can move forward, but that has not been scheduled at press time.
“They say he will be under house arrest, but they haven’t told us where he is or where he will be transferred. My father has not arrived home. As of this moment, he remains forcibly disappeared,” Ramón Guanipa said, and recalled that his father’s terms of release only mandated court appearances every 30 days and a ban on travel out of the country.
“He is still missing at this time. Speaking and expressing oneself is not a crime, and we cannot continue to allow ourselves to be punished for it,” he said during another part of the press conference.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.