Significant number

Venezuela to release "significant number" of political prisoners, says National Assembly president

From CNN's Uriel Blanco and Max Saltman

Jorge Rodríguez, president of Venezuela’s National Assembly, said Thursday that the government has decided to release “a significant number” of political prisoners, both Venezuelan and foreign, in order to “contribute to the effort” of “national unity.”

“The Bolivarian government has decided to release a significant number of Venezuelan and foreign nationals, and these release processes are taking place immediately,” Rodríguez said in a video message broadcast on the public channel TeleSur.

He indicated that this release was a “gesture by the government… with a broad intention to seek peace.”

Members of the Trump administration have told US lawmakers they have made clear to Venezuela that it must release political prisoners, among other demands, according to a source familiar with the US administration’s briefing with key lawmakers this week.

Venezuela holds hundreds of people as political prisoners, according to human rights activists, some of whom were detained in the aftermath of a 2024 election in which Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro claimed victory but that independent observers said was undemocratic.

Days before the US captured Maduro, a US official told CNN that Venezuelan security forces had detained at least five Americans in recent months.

At the time, the official told CNN that the Trump administration believed that the Americans had been detained as leverage. The individual cases of each detainee varied, and some may have been involved in drug smuggling, the official added.

It is unclear whether any of the five referenced by the official will be among those released.