Edmundo Gonzalez, whom the White House called the “president-elect” of Venezuela despite Nicolas Maduro’s continued hold on the country, said his son-in-law was kidnapped in Caracas the day after he met with President Joe Biden.
Gonzalez announced the news Tuesday afternoon, adding that his son-in-law was dropping off his children at school before “hooded men dressed in black” kidnapped him and placed him in a truck.
“This morning my son-in-law Rafael Tudares was kidnapped,” Gonzalez said in a statement on X. “Rafael was heading to my grandchildren’s school, ages 7 and 6, in Caracas, to drop them off for the start of classes, and he was intercepted by hooded men dressed in black, who put him in a gold-colored pickup truck with the license plate AA54E2C and took him away. At this time he is missing.”
There is no evidence that Maduro, the authoritarian president of Venezuela and political rival of Gonzalez, had a role in the kidnapping, but the State Department suggested that he did.
“We condemn the attempts by Maduro and his representatives to intimidate the democratic opposition in Venezuela,” the department said. “Repression and intimidation cannot hide the truth.”
Maduro’s government expressed anger at Biden’s meeting with Gonzalez, saying the meeting was “a flagrant violation of international law and a crude attempt to perpetuate imperialist interference in Latin America.”
Maduro has maintained that he won the July 2024 election even though a collection of the votes in the country showed Gonzalez won decisively. Gonzalez is now in exile in Spain, and Maduro has placed a $100,000 bounty for him to be captured. He will likely be arrested if he returns to the country.
A readout of the meeting between Biden and Gonzalez said the president “emphasized that the world was inspired by the millions of Venezuelans who courageously voted for democratic change in Venezuela’s deeply flawed July 28 presidential election.”
“Both leaders agreed there is nothing more essential to the success of democracy than respecting the will of the people, as expressed through a transparent and accountable electoral process, and that Gonzalez Urrutia’s campaign victory should be honored through a peaceful transfer back to democratic rule,” it said.
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Rafael Tudares’s wife, Mariana González, said in a statement that her kidnapped husband was a victim of “persecution.”
“At what point did it become a crime to be Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia’s family?” she said.