MEXICO CITY (Sputnik) – Venezuela’s former defense minister, retired general Raul Isaias Baduel has been detained for failing to comply with his house arrest, Interior Minister Nestor Reverol has announced.
"We will continue to monitor all threats to internal order and social peace," Reverol stressed on Thursday, as quoted by Venezolana de Television, saying that "criminal information has been collected in the raid of his [Baduel’s] residence" that points to alleged conspiratorial activities.
Baduel served as Venezuela’s Defense Minister under the presidency of Hugo Chavez. It was Baduel who helped Chavez return to power after the 2002 coup attempt. In 2007 Baduel became an opposition leader and in 2009 he was arrested. The former defense minister was sentenced to over seven years in prison for corruption in 2010. In 2015, he was allowed to serve his sentence at home.
On October 25, 2016, the opposition-led National Assembly of Venezuela voted for initiating impeachment proceedings against Maduro and ordered him to appear at a Congress session on November 1. However, the Venezuelan government dismissed the move, since impeachment is not stipulated by the country’s constitution as a legal procedure.
Maduro has started a crackdown on opposition members, accusing them of plotting a coup against them.
