Star Metro - Venezuelan AG wants amnesty for toppled leader Maduro

Maduro was captured by US forces in a deadly military strike on January 3 and spirited away to New York to stand trial on drug charges.

His vice president Delcy Rodriguez took his place with the consent of US President Donald Trump, provided she does Washington's bidding on access to Venezuelan oil and expanding democratic freedoms.

She subsequently proposed a general amnesty, the details of which are contained in a bill before parliament that could be passed on Thursday.

Attorney General Tarek William Saab told AFP on Wednesday the amnesty was the only way to achieve "a genuine pacification" of a country still reeling from many years of repression, with hundreds of government critics jailed on vague charges including "terrorism" and "treason."

Rodriguez has started releasing political prisoners ahead of the pending amnesty -- more than 400 according to rights group Foro Penal, but with many more still behind bars.

"We deserve peace, for everything to be debated through dialogue," Saab told AFP in an interview at his office in Caracas.

Behind his desk hung photographs of Saab with Maduro, his socialist predecessor Hugo Chavez, and Cuba's revolutionary leader Fidel Castro.

Saab has long been an integral part of the "Chavista" movement named after Chavez, and he has retained his post under Rodriguez's interim presidency.

He insisted Wednesday that the amnesty must apply to both opposition and government figures equally.

But he declined to talk about what would happen to opposition leaders such as Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Corina Machado, or about whether the state will assume responsibility for its actions.

The bill, in a form seen by AFP last week, excluded serious human rights violations from the amnesty provisions.

- 'Embryos of civil war' -

The draft law is meant to clear the rap sheets of hundreds of people jailed for challenging the Maduro regime.

It also covers unspecified "offenses" committed by "Chavista" agents and officials.

The bill envisages amnesty for acts in relation to a 2002 coup against Chavez that ultimately failed, various protests between 2004 and 2024, and online criticism of the government.

It also revokes measures barring opposition members from holding public office -- as Machado had been.

In the interview, Saab focused on acts committed by government detractors, which he described as "embryos of civil war."

He mentioned "attempted assassinations" and "violent demonstrations with dozens, hundreds of dead and injured."

Critics of the bill fear its wording is vague enough to be used by the government -- still stacked with Maduro acolytes -- to pardon its own and deny freedom to prisoners of conscience.

Saab insisted the arrest of Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores was a violation of international law, and said the amnesty should be extended to them both as part of a "humanitarian, historic, unprecedented gesture" for Venezuela to move forward.

P.Graham--SMC