El Salvador president says he is willing to repatriate deportees in exchange for release of ‘political prisoners.’El Salvador President Nayib Bukele has proposed a prisoner swap that would see Venezuelans deported from the United States to his country exchanged for “political prisoners” in Venezuela.
In pointed remarks directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Sunday, Bukele suggested the countries reach a “humanitarian agreement” amid Caracas’s demands for the repatriation of Venezuelan deportees.
Bukele said he would be willing to repatriate 252 Venezuelans being held in a Salvadoran maximum security prison in exchange for “an identical number of the thousands of political prisoners that you hold”.
“Unlike our detainees, many of whom have committed murder, others have committed rape, and some have even been arrested multiple times before being deported, your political prisoners have committed no crime. The only reason they are imprisoned is because they opposed you and your electoral fraud,” Bukele said on X.
Bukele went on to list a number of people being held in Venezuelan prisons, including Rafael Tudares, the son-in-law of exiled former Venezuelan presidential candidate Edmundo González, and Corina Parisca, the mother of opposition leader María Corina Machado. Advertisement
Venezuelan Attorney General Tarek William Saab described Bukele’s proposal as “cynical” and called on his government to provide a complete list of the “hostages” along with “proof of life and a medical report” for each detainee.
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