Venezuela: Arrested Former Opposition Presidential Candidate
By MISNA
Former Venezuelan presidential candidate Manuel Rosales was arrested yesterday upon his return to Venezuela from exile in Peru, six years after the government of late socialist leader Hugo Chavez accused him of illicit enrichment.
Agents of the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service (SEBIN) detained the opposition official at the international airport of Maracaibo, capital of Zulia State, where Rosales served as governor in the past.
Judiciary authorities announced his transfer to Caracas to face illicit enrichment charges, he averted fleeing the nation in 2009 before the opening of his trial.
After his defeat in the polls by late Hugo Chavez in 2006, Rosales was charged in 2008 with improperly reporting his income while he was Zulia governor and of registering income the origin of which he could not explain to the comptroller general, according to state prosecutors.
After fleeing to Peru he disappeared from the Venezuelan political scene, also because barred from holding office until 2022.
Rosales made an appeal to his supporters gathered at the Maracaibo airport, calling for the to vote in mass for the opposition in the December 6 legislative elections.
