Venezuela’s attorney general told AFP on Thursday that Nobel Peace Prize winner and opposition leader María Corina Machado would be considered a “fugitive” if she left the country to receive her prize. María Corina Machado, who claims to be hiding in Venezuela, has declared her intention to go to Oslo in Norway to receive the Nobel Prize on December 10.
“Being outside Venezuela and the target of multiple criminal investigations, she is considered a fugitive,” Attorney General Tarek William Saab said, noting that María Corina Machado was accused by a Venezuelan court of “acts of conspiracy, incitement to hatred and terrorism.”
In the same interview with AFP, he also indicated that “more than 100 mercenaries”, from “more than 30 different nationalities” and “linked to the CIA” were being pursued by Venezuela’s public prosecutor.
Caracas announced in late October that it had dismantled a “criminal cell” linked to the CIA, which attempted to attack the American ship USS Gravely docked in Trinidad and Tobago with the aim of incriminating Venezuela, according to Foreign Minister Yvan Gil.
Washington has officially deployed a fleet including the world’s largest aircraft carrier in the Caribbean and Pacific to combat drug trafficking, a deployment that Nicolás Maduro sees as an operation aimed at “imposing regime change” in Caracas.
Donald Trump said on Monday he would speak “someday” with his Venezuelan counterpart, who said he was ready to speak “one on one” with the American president.
María Corina Machado, 58, Venezuelan opposition leader, claims that Nicolás Maduro stole the July 2024 elections that gave him a third six-year term.
The United States and much of the international community have not recognized these results.
During a videoconference interview with AFP in mid-October, Machado said he was confident that President Maduro “will leave power with or without negotiations.”
