The Biden administration’s exchange of two convicted Venezuelan drug traffickers related to socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro in exchange for seven imprisoned American citizens drew a barrage of criticism this weekend, particularly given the precedent set by the Trump administration with the release of American citizen Joshua Holt.
Joshua Holt, an American who was recently released from imprisonment in Venezuela, remains in hospital with his wife, with the couple soon planning to return to their home state of Utah.
“There are people in Maduro’s government that are willing to work with the United States to improve relations between the countries. There are people who really want to affect the relationship in a good way. They were very helpful to us.”
“You were a tough one, I have to tell you,” Trump said to Holt, about the process of securing his release.
“Good news about the release of the American hostage from Venezuela,” Trump wrote on Twitter.
The mothers and wives of political prisoners held in Venezuela’s Helicoide, a building designed as a shopping mall that now houses dozens of the nation’s prisoners of conscience, said late Sunday they were denied visiting rights that day and have heard nothing of their loved ones since a protest forced the transfer of dozens out of the facility.
Authorities in Venezuela have transferred at least 72 people following an inmate revolt at the Helicoide prison facility in Caracas.
Political prisoners being held in Caracas’ Helicoide prison – once destined to be the capital’s largest shopping mall, but now home to over 50 political dissidents – began protesting against the regime and demanding their freedom Tuesday night, prompting a violent response from Venezuela’s secret police (Sebin).
Sen. Dick Durbin has announced he is “heartbroken” after visiting the socialist state of Venezuela, which is currently embroiled in the worst political, economic, and humanitarian crisis in its history.
The State Department called on the socialist regime in Venezuela to release Joshua Holt on Tuesday, a 25-year-old U.S. citizen whose health has deteriorated considerably in the year and a half that he has spent behind bars on highly suspicious charges of weapons stockpiling.
The mother of an American man wrongfully imprisoned in Venezuela says she is hopeful the Trump administration may soon secure the release of her son after the return of 22-year-old student Otto Warmbier to the United States this week from North Korea.
As the one-year anniversary of his arrest on charges largely considered falsified approaches, American Joshua Holt continues to languish in a Venezuelan prison. His family, the Miami Herald reports this week, says he has grown “depressed and angry,” losing weight as his health deteriorates in prison.
An attorney representing Joshua Holt, an American arrested in Venezuela under dubious “terrorism” charges, says she has not been allowed to see him for most of December, since the fourth scheduled hearing the judge in his case chose not to attend.
The socialist government of Venezuela has been torturing U.S. citizen Joshua Holt in prison, forcing him to violate his Mormon faith and perform “calisthenics” naked in the hallways of the prison, according to Holt’s family.
On Monday’s broadcast of CNN’s “The Lead,” Laurie Holt, the mother of Mormon missionary Joshua Holt, who has been held prisoner in Venezuela since June 30, stated that despite “numerous” attempts to contact officials, “I haven’t heard from anybody as
