The UK foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, has been urged to draw on his experience as a former Foreign Office human rights lawyer to press the legal case that the Venezuelan government of Nicolás Maduro has systematically tortured its people.

The call was led by prominent Venezuela human rights defender Tamara Sujú who visited London to persuade the UK to join six non-European countries in pressuring the international criminal court (ICC) to pursue a case against the Venezuelan leadership.

Raab has also worked as a lawyer for the FCO, stationed from 2000 to 2006 in the Hague and the ICC.

In theory the case could end with Maduro arraigned in front of the court, but progress with the ICC case has the potential to play into the various indirect talks currently underway between supporters of Maduro – who succeeded the leftwing Hugo Chavez as Venezuela’s president – and Juan Guaidó, the self-proclaimed interim leader recognised by most EU countries and backed by the US.

British backing for the ICC investigation would be a further blow for Maduro. The ICC referral was initially backed by Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Paraguay, Peru, and Canada at the end of last year, becoming the first state referral to the ICC by other states.

A preliminary investigation was launched by ICC in September 2018.

Sujú, executive director of the Casla Institute and a Guaidó supporter, said: “We need a European country, preferably Britain, with sufficiently solid institutions, a democratic tradition and commitment to human rights to join us in the ICC not just with words but to subscribe formally to the case.

“We also need Great Britain to impose personal and economic sanctions against the Maduro regime and to close their spaces”.

The Trump administration tightened economic sanctions against Maduro again this week.

Sujú has compiled over 600 detailed cases of human rights abuses. Her critics say she is part of an army of Maduro’s opponents that use human rights to denounce the leftwing government.

An ICC case has four initial stages, including a case to answer, identification of the victims, assessment of whether the crimes are eligible as crimes against humanity, and whether the government has sought to prosecute the cases.

Sujú’s chief claim is that the arrests of demonstrators, and increasingly figures in the military, are systematically directed by the Maduro government, indicating the leadership would have to face justice at the ICC.

“There are not random accidents of violence,” she said. “What has stood out is that they group masses of protestors 40 or 50 at the time, take them to the station and torture them as a group. We have cases where families were taken. They made the father watch as his child was tortured and then the child would watch his father be tortured. They tortured a mother and daughter take off their clothes off before they applied electricity.”

She highlighted the death of military captain Rafael Acosta Arévalo, who was arrested on 26 June and died three days later. At his military tribunal he was unable to stand, hear or understand what was happening and pleaded with his lawyer for help.

The UN high commissioner for human rights, Michelle Bachelet has visited Venezuela to find political prisoners are tortured, including with electrical currents, simulated drowning, beatings and sexual violence, and is setting up a permanent mission. </s> The UK foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, has been urged to draw on his experience as a former Foreign Office human rights lawyer to press the legal case that the Venezuelan government of Nicolás Maduro has systematically tortured its people.

The call was led by the prominent Venezuela human rights defender Tamara Sujú who visited London to persuade the UK to join six non-European countries in pressuring the international criminal court (ICC) to pursue a case against the Venezuelan leadership.

Raab worked as a lawyer for the FCO, including at the ICC in The Hague, from 2000 to 2006.

In theory the case could end with Maduro arraigned in front of the court, but progress with the ICC case has the potential to play into the various indirect talks currently under way between supporters of Maduro – who succeeded the leftwing Hugo Chavez as Venezuela’s president – and Juan Guaidó, the self-proclaimed interim leader recognised by most EU countries and backed by the US.

British backing for the ICC investigation would be a further blow for Maduro. The ICC referral was initially backed by Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Paraguay, Peru and Canada at the end of last year, becoming the first state referral to the ICC by other states.

The ICC launched a preliminary investigation in September 2018.

Sujú, executive director of the Casla Institute and a Guaidó supporter, said: “We need a European country, preferably Britain, with sufficiently solid institutions, a democratic tradition and commitment to human rights to join us in the ICC not just with words but to subscribe formally to the case.

“We also need Great Britain to impose personal and economic sanctions against the Maduro regime and to close their spaces.”

The Trump administration tightened economic sanctions against Maduro again this week.

Venezuela: UN report accuses Maduro of ‘gross violations’ against dissenters Read more

Sujú has compiled more than 600 detailed cases of alleged human rights abuses. Her critics say she is part of an army of Maduro opponents who use human rights to denounce the leftwing government.

An ICC case has four initial stages, including a case to answer, identification of the victims, assessment of whether the crimes are eligible as crimes against humanity and whether the government has sought to prosecute the cases.

Sujú’s chief claim is that the arrests of demonstrators and, increasingly, of figures in the military, are systematically directed by the Maduro government, indicating the leadership would have to face justice at the ICC.

Profile Who is Nicolás Maduro? Show Hide Political career Nicolás Maduro has ruled Venezuela without two of the greatest assets possessed by his mentor and predecessor, Hugo Chávez. He has not been lucky. And he has no charisma. Chávez enjoyed an oil bounty and sublime political talents that secured his power at home and reputation abroad. Maduro, in contrast, inherited a wobbling economy addicted to high oil prices and a system of authoritarian populism dependent on showmanship and patronage. Oil prices tumbled and Maduro proved to be a fumbling showman, exposing the financial ineptitude and ideological hollowness of the “Bolivarian revolution”. This could have doomed his presidency, which began in 2013 after Chávez died, but the former bus driver, a hulking bear of a man who rose up trade union ranks, turned out to be tenacious and ruthless. Born into a working class family in Caracas in 1962, he left school without graduating and drove buses for the Caracas metro. He became a union organiser and early supporter of Chávez, who, after leading a failed coup, led a leftwing coalition to an electoral landslide in 1998. Maduro was the speaker of the assembly before serving as Chávez’s foreign minister from 2006 to 2013, a visible if largely silent presence as the comandante held court on the world stage. Chávez anointed Maduro as his heir before succumbing to cancer. The story of his rule – and Venezuela’s agony – is a determination to keep power amid economic collapse, humanitarian disaster and international condemnation. Since January 2019 his presidency has been disputed, with Juan Guaidó being sworn in as interim president, and recognised as Venezuela’s ruler by some international powers. Crisis after crisis has buffeted his government – hyperinflation, food and medicine shortages, power blackouts, mass protests, drone attacks, defections, US-led sanctions – and Maduro has remained standing, resolute, implacable. It is a remarkable position for a man who, in a 2014 Guardian interview, described himself as a bit of a hippy and a fan of Led Zeppelin and John Lennon. “I never aspired to be president,” he said. “I always honour something that commander Chávez told us: that while we were in these posts we must be clothed in humility and understand that we are here to protect the man and woman of the streets.” Rory Carroll

“There are not random accidents of violence,” she said. “What has stood out is that they group masses of protesters 40 or 50 at the time, take them to the station and torture them as a group. We have cases where families were taken. They made the father watch as his child was tortured and then the child would watch his father be tortured. They tortured a mother and daughter, took off their clothes off before they applied electricity.”

She highlighted the death of the military captain Rafael Acosta Arévalo, who was arrested on 26 June and died three days later. At his military tribunal he was unable to stand, hear or understand what was happening and pleaded with his lawyer for help.

The UN high commissioner for human rights, Michelle Bachelet, has visited Venezuela to find political prisoners are tortured, including with electrical currents, simulated drowning, beatings and sexual violence, and is setting up a permanent mission. </s> The United Nations has said it will investigate the death in custody of an opposition councillor jailed by Venezuela’s intelligence police on allegations that he plotted to kill President Nicolás Maduro.

Venezuelan officials said that Fernando Albán killed himself by leaping from the 10th floor of the state police agency’s headquarters. But opposition leaders denied the official version.

Ravina Shamdasani with the Office of United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said Venezuelan officials were obligated to ensure Albán’s safety while in their custody. The investigation into his death will be part of the UN’s wider investigation of alleged human rights abuses, she said.

“We are concerned about news of his death,” Shamdasani said. “We do indeed call for a transparent investigation to clarify the circumstances.”

Albán, 56, was taken into custody on Friday at Caracas’s international airport upon arriving from New York, according to his lawyer. He was in the US accompanying other members of his First Justice party for meetings with foreign dignitaries attending the United Nations general assembly.

A few dozen of Albán’s supporters gathered outside the police building yelling “Maduro killer!” contending that he had been murdered.

“There’s no doubt this was an assassination,” the opposition leader Julio Borges said in a video from exile in neighbouring Colombia, without providing evidence of his claim. “The only thing left for this government is torture, violence and destruction.”

While Venezuelans last year saw dozens of youths killed in violent street battles with security forces, the death of activists or government opponents while in state custody is a fate more associated with the far deadlier, rightwing dictatorships that dominated much of South America in the 1970s.

The opposition claims that more than 100 Venezuelans opposed to Maduro are being held as “political prisoners”, some for more than four years, with little access to the outside world and their legal rights routinely trampled on. The government denies they are political prisoners.

Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro survives apparent assassination attempt Read more

Borges, who led the delegation to the UN, said Albán’s wife told him that her husband had been under intense pressure to testify against him in the ongoing investigation into the alleged plot in early August to kill Maduro using two drones loaded with explosives.

More than two dozen people have been jailed on suspicion of involvement in the plot, which Maduro claims was orchestrated by Borges with the support of Colombia and the US.

The chief prosecutor, Tarek William Saab, ordered an investigation into the circumstances surrounding Albán’s death, which he classified as a suicide.

ISpeaking on state TV, he said Albán was in the waiting room of the headquarters of Venezuela’s intelligence police waiting to be transferred to a courthouse when he asked to use the bathroom. He then threw himself from the 10th floor of the building, officials said.

Borges, who said Albán was a personal friend, said the councillor – who represented a district in the Caracas area – was a family man and devout Catholic who would never kill himself.

Albán’s lawyer, Joel García, said his client seemed calm when they met on the night before in the tribunal. García said authorities cannot determine that a death is a suicide without an investigation and he would ask to be present at the autopsy. </s> A Venezuelan Supreme Court judge who once supported President Nicolás Maduro has fled to the United States and publicly denounced Maduro's re-election days before the inauguration.

Justice Christian Zerpa left Venezuela with his wife and two daughters, according to Miami broadcaster EVTV. Their destination in the U.S. was unclear.

Zerpa met a reporter in Orlando and told the outlet, "I think the president, Nicolás Maduro, does not deserve a second chance because the election he supposedly won was not a free election, was not a competitive election."

Maduro won the May 2018 race amid widespread accusations of fraud. He will begin his second term on Thursday.

Zerpa said he did not speak out against the election results months ago out of concerns for his family's safety.

Maduro's Socialist Party "gradually but steadily" co-opted the Supreme Court and "turned it into an appendage of the executive branch," according to the International Commission of Jurists.

In 2016, following a landslide electoral victory by the opposition, Zerpa helped Maduro consolidate power through a court decision that diminished the powers of Congress, according to Reuters.

"They chose me [for the court] because I was one of the loyal, disciplined members in the United Socialist Party of Venezuela," Zerpa told EVTV.

Venezuela's Supreme Court of Justice responded to Zerpa's decision to leave by noting he was being investigated for sexual harassment, lewd acts and psychological violence.

Zerpa "fled the country, exercising his constitutional right, to avoid justice and so his crimes remain unpunished," said Supreme Court President Maikel Moreno. He said the investigation began last November.

According to a Reuters investigation, Moreno himself was arrested in connection with the homicide of a teenager in 1989 and was defrocked as an appeals court in 2007 for improperly releasing two murder suspects. "Under Moreno as chief justice, the court proceeded to dismiss every legal challenge to Maduro's authority that has reached the bench," the report stated.

Zerpa is not the first Venezuelan justice to flee to the United States. Former Supreme Court Judge Eladio Aponte Aponte fled in 2012 after accusing the government of corruption. Maduro, then the foreign minister, called him a fugitive who "sold his soul."

Under Maduro, who succeeded President Hugo Chávez in 2013, the once thriving country has seen hyperinflation, shortages of food and medicine, and waves of fleeing citizens rushing the border out of desperation. Caracas has faced angry protests, U.S. sanctions and a slump in oil exports.

The government has also cracked down on dissent through the "arbitrary arrests and detentions" of thousands of people, according to human rights groups. Many detainees say they were tortured and sexually abused.

The new president of Venezuela's opposition-controlled National Assembly, Juan Guaido, was sworn in last week. U.S. State Department spokesperson Robert Palladino called the body "the only legitimate and last remaining democratically elected institution that truly represents the will of the Venezuelan people." </s> Security forces in Venezuela have carried out hundreds of unjustified killings without any apparent consequences, the United Nations has said in a new report, drawing a rejection from government officials in Caracas..

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said on Friday that Venezuelan officers accused of questionable killings appear to be evading any charges.

It called on the government to bring perpetrators to justice and said it was sending its report to the International Criminal Court (ICC), whose prosecutor opened a preliminary investigation in February.

"The rule of law is virtually absent in Venezuela," Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, the UN high commissioner for human rights, said in the report. "The impunity must end."

The government of President Nicolas Maduro rejected the report as "grotesque media farce", which omits information officials in Caracas provided to investigators.

The findings are part of an international push against the country led by officials in the United States, the ministry of foreign affairs said in a statement.

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"Venezuela reiterates its unrelenting commitment to human rights set out in Venezuela's Constitution and international treaties," the statement added.

The UN report cited "credible, shocking" accounts of extrajudicial killings of young men during crime-fighting operations in poor neighbourhoods conducted without arrest warrants. It said security forces would tamper with the scene so that there appeared to have been an exchange of fire.

The report also said that between 2015 and 2017, some 357 officers were placed under investigation stemming from 505 killings during supposed neighbourhood raids.

But Venezuela's attorney general, Luisa Ortega, who was critical of Maduro, was replaced last August, and no more information about the prosecutions became public.

#Venezuela: "Given that the State appears neither able nor willing to prosecute serious #HumanRights violations, there is a strong case to be made for deeper involvement by the #ICC" – UN Human Rights Chief Zeid. Read: https://t.co/omAzVKLfg8 pic.twitter.com/hkHJfRd2We — UN Human Rights (@UNHumanRights) June 22, 2018

Critics say Maduro has used increasingly authoritarian tactics as the OPEC nation's economy has spiralled deeper into recession and hyperinflation, increasing discontent and prompting hundreds of thousands to emigrate in the past year.

About 125 people died in anti-government protests last year.

Security forces were allegedly responsible for killing at least 46 of them, UN rights spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani told a news briefing, adding: "Evidence has reportedly disappeared from case files."

Al-Hussein called on the UN Human Rights Council on Monday to set up an international commission of inquiry into alleged violations in Venezuela - one of its 47 member states.

"The repression is still there; it's more targeted," Tamara Taraciuk, senior researcher for the United States at Human Rights Watch, a US-based rights group, told Al Jazeera

"We've seen increasing participation of intelligence services that go and participate in the arrests - and in the abuses against detainees, including cases of torture," added Taraciuk.

Maduro has cast the release of dozens of opposition members as a peace gesture following his controversial re-election to a new six-year term last month, which was condemned by most Western nations as an undemocratic farce.

His government denies the detainees are political prisoners.

Venezuela is suffering from an economic collapse that includes chronic shortages of food and medicine and huge inflation numbers.

Maduro blames an "economic war" directed by the opposition and the US - which has imposed new sanctions on Venezuela's oil industry. </s> Interim Venezuelan President Juan Guaidó suggested on Thursday that the nation’s opposition is open to discussing granting prosecutorial amnesty to dictator Nicolás Maduro and top officials, such as drug traffickers Diosdado Cabello and Tareck El Aissami, despite their flagrant record of years of human rights abuses.

Guaidó made the remark in his first interview since being sworn into the office of the presidency on Wednesday during nationwide protests against Maduro’s socialist regime, speaking to Univisión’s Patricia Janiot. Guaidó also provided in that interview the first estimates of crowd sizes at Wednesday’s massive protests; the opposition estimates that between seven and eight million people nationwide turned out to call for an end to the Maduro regime.

Guaidó, previously the president of the National Assembly, rose to prominence rapidly this month despite being a founding member of Popular Will, the socialist opposition party led by political prisoner Leopoldo López. The interview served as an introduction to Guaidó for much of the world, particularly in Latin America, where most nations have accepted him, and not Maduro, as Venezuela’s legitimate head of state.

Articles 333 and 350 of the Venezuelan Constitution require the Venezuelan people to “fail to recognize any regime, legislation, or authority that contradicts the values, principles, and democratic guarantees [herein] or violates human rights.” The Venezuelan opposition contends that, given these unique provisions in their constitution, Maduro’s illegitimate occupation of power requires his expulsion and the creation of an interim government to organize free and fair elections.

Maduro has not budged from Miraflores, the presidential palace, and rejected calls to step aside because “some nobody inaugurated himself.” To avoid bloodshed, Guaidó told Janot that amnesty for Maduro and his top officials, as well as any soldier who wishes to disobey Maduro, is “on the table”:

While Guaidó has international support, the military continues to back Maduro, making it impossible for Guaidó to serve as commander in chief. Asked by Janiot what he believes needs to happen for the military to come around, Guaidó noted that the National Assembly has already approved “an amnesty law … to get them on the right side of the constitution.” The law would make it possible for the soldiers to avoid prosecution in the event that they participated in violence against unarmed protesters.

Janiot asked if that law would extend all the way up to Maduro, accused of serial human rights violations since taking office in 2013.

“We’d have to check that out,” Guaidó responded. “He is an official, a public official, a dictator responsible for the victims yesterday in Venezuela.” NGOs estimate that Venezuelan National Guard troops killed at least 18 unarmed protesters on Wednesday.

“There is a very clear responsibility on this,” the president noted. “[Yet] in transition periods, similar things have happened. It happened in Chile, it happened in Venezuela in 1958. We cannot discard any options, but we have to be firm towards the future.”

He added that amnesty “is on the table for all who are willing to be on the right side of the constitution, to restore the constitutional order.”

Guaidó concluded on the topic that amnesty does not mean “impunity. When we talk about amnesty, we don’t mean forgetting. We mean justice, social justice, addressing the [humanitarian] emergency.”

Venezuela is home to nearly 300 political prisoners and the regime has killed hundreds of people since opposition protests took shape in 2014. Those who have survived the regime’s most brutal prisons – El Helicoide, a former shopping mall, and The Tomb, a secret police torture chamber – say political prisoners are forced to endure classic torture techniques such as sleep deprivation, electroshock, and standing or sitting in confined spaces for hours. Other methods of torture include being forced to beat and torture other prisoners, rape, and crucifixion.

The use of any or all of these tactics would satisfy the requirements to charge Maduro with crimes against humanity, an international crime with universal jurisdiction, meaning any court in the world can try it.

Janiot also asked Guaidó about holding elections. Many on the far left, discarding Guaidó’s socialist credentials, have expressed concern that there is no timeline for establishing elections to ensure that the president of the country has a mandate from the people. Guaidó answered that his goal is to hold elections “as soon as possible,” but those elections must allow for members of Venezuela’s growing refugee community to participate, as well. In November, the United Nations documented the existence of three million Venezuelan refugees – most fleeing to Brazil, Colombia, and Ecuador – noting that the number is growing rapidly as the average Venezuelan does not have the means to procure three meals a day.

Guaidó’s first act following his swearing-in was to request international humanitarian aid through the Organization of American States (OAS). American Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced Thursday that the United States would answer that request with a $20 million shipment of aid to the country. That aid reaching the Venezuelan people will depend on if Maduro chooses to use the military to intervene and attack the aid convoy; Maduro has rejected all offers of humanitarian aid, except from China, arguing that they could be used as Trojan horses for an “imperialist” invasion. </s> The Trump administration imposed sanctions Friday on six high-ranking members of the Venezuelan security forces and revoked the visas of other officials and their relatives in the latest effort to pressure President Nicolas Maduro into leaving office.

The sanctions are in response to the blocking of humanitarian aid convoys last week while the visa revocations on dozens of individuals are intended to punish people who have flourished amid the South American country's dire economic crisis, Elliott Abrams, the special representative for Venezuela, told reporters.

"Maduro supporters that abuse or violate human rights, steal from the Venezuelan people or undermine Venezuela's democracy are not welcome in the United States," Abrams said. "Neither are their family members who enjoy a privileged lifestyle at the expense of the liberty and prosperity of millions of Venezuelans."

The measures were the latest by the Trump administration to increase the international pressure on Maduro, whose re-election last year is seen as illegitimate, to resign and turn power over to the opposition leader Juan Guaido, who has been recognised by the US and 50 other government as interim president.

The State Department later said that the US had revoked the visas of 49 people, making them subject to deportation if they are in the country. It placed an unspecified number of others on a visa restriction list.

The US already has travel bans on other high-ranking Venezuelan officials connected to Maduro who are accused of committing human rights abuses or corruption.

Maduro's forces fired tear gas and buckshot at activists trying to deliver humanitarian aid in violent clashes on Feb. 23, leaving two people dead and about 300 injured.

Friday's action targets six security officials "who control many of the groups that prevented humanitarian aid from entering Venezuela, thereby exacerbating the humanitarian crisis that has left millions of Venezuelans starving and without access to medical care under the Maduro regime," Treasury said in a statement.

The sanctions block any assets they have in US jurisdictions and bar Americans from conducting financial transactions with them.

Guaido had announced that last weekend's attempt to deliver US-supplied humanitarian aid from Colombia into Venezuela would be politically decisive, but Maduro called the aid part of a scheme to overthrow his government.

Maduro has denounced his opponents as killers and criminals in fiery speeches reminiscent of the style of his predecessor and mentor, Hugo Chavez. </s> LONDON — Julian Assange has been left in a state of "extreme stress, chronic anxiety" and "constant panic" after spending seven years holed up in London's Ecuadorian Embassy, a leading United Nations expert who visited the WikiLeaks co-founder in prison said Thursday.

Nils Melzer, the U.N. special rapporteur on torture, told NBC News he blames the United States, United Kingdom and Sweden for "ganging up" on Assange and subjecting him to "psychological torture" and "collective persecution" while he was inside the embassy.

"You talk with him and he is extremely agitated. He had all these questions: What's going on there? What is in this [legal] proceeding? And what's going to happen here?" the U.N. official, who has been working informally with Assange's legal team, said.

"He's so preoccupied that he will bombard you with questions without waiting for answers," Melzer said.

Assange fled to the embassy in 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden to face allegations of rape and sexual assault. Critics pointed out he was free to walk outside and face justice whenever he wanted.

But Assange and his supporters claim he was forced into exile to avoid extradition to the U.S., a belief supported by Melzer.

Assange is currently being held at London's high-security Belmarsh prison, having been hauled out of the embassy in April and sentenced to 50 weeks for skipping bail.

The U.S. has since announced it is charging Assange with 17 counts under the Espionage Act of 1917, which critics say has potential free speech implications.

In a telephone interview, Melzer said that if Assange is extradited to the U.S., he faces what amounts to "ill treatment or torture," such as prolonged isolation, sensory deprivation and solitary confinement.

He faces up to 175 years in prison if convicted of all charges.

"There is this intelligence cooperation between Sweden and the U.S., which is very important for Sweden and their own defense strategy since they evolved away from neutrality in the '90s," Melzer said. "Sweden has been very forthcoming in cooperating with the U.S. in those years."

Asked by NBC News to respond to the allegation that its investigation of Assange was disproportionate, the Swedish prosecutor's office declined to comment.

The investigation of sexual assault against Assange expired in 2015 because it exceeded the statute of limitations. The investigation of rape was dropped in 2017 because officials said it was impossible to pursue Assange while in exile. They reopened that case after his arrest last month.

On Thursday, Assange missed a court hearing because his lawyer said he was too ill to appear by video link. Melzer visited him on May 9, accompanied by two medical professionals specializing in the impact of torture on detainees.

He "shows all the signs that are typical for person who has prolonged exposure to psychological torture, including extreme stress, chronic anxiety and intense psychological trauma," Melzer said. "You can see that that's someone who lives in constant panic. Basically, it's a bit like imagine being in a nightmare and never waking up."

The U.N. rapporteur is also a professor of international law at the University of Glasgow, human rights chair of the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights, and previously worked as an adviser to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

In a U.N. statement released Friday, Melzer said he believes there has been a "unrestrained campaign of public mobbing, intimidation and defamation" by the U.S., Ecuador and Sweden to get Assange extradited to the U.S. Other experts say that Sweden's reopening of the rape case complicates this supposed aim.

Melzer has written to all four governments asking them to "refrain from further disseminating, instigating or tolerating statements or other activities prejudicial to Assange's human rights and dignity."

“In 20 years of work with victims of war, violence and political persecution, I have never seen a group of democratic states ganging up to deliberately isolate, demonize and abuse a single individual for such a long time," he wrote. </s> The State Department on Monday announced it would allow lawsuits to be brought against Cuba companies and individuals by people whose property was seized by the communist government during and after Fidel Castro's revolution in the late 1950s.

In the United States' latest move to punish Cuba and encourage democracy in the communist nation, the State Department announced it would suspend for 30 days part of the 1996 Libertad Act, also known as the Helms-Burton Act, and allow some lawsuits to be brought against companies using properties confiscated by the Cuban government after its 1959 revolution.

"Even under a new president in Cuba, nothing has changed," a senior State Department official said Monday. "The U.S. is holding the Cuban regime responsible."

Every president since Bill Clinton has suspended the section of the act that would allow such lawsuits because they could snarl companies from U.S.-allied countries – like the United Kingdom, France and Spain – in years of complicated litigation that could prompt international trade claims against the United States. The State Department, however, made clear that any lawsuits brought in U.S. federal courts would target Cuban entities and sub-entities, not ones owned or controlled by U.S. allies.

Allowing a limited number of lawsuits could make investment in Cuba more burdensome for companies thinking of entering the market, who will now have to do additional research into their legal liability, but it is unlikely to be a major blow against the Cuban economy.

"This is the first time we're not fully suspending this section of the Libertad Act," the senior State Department official said. "We're giving claimants the opportunity to sue for their property."

While State Department officials said the move was focused on advancing the cause of individual rights in Cuba, other officials also linked the actions to Havana's role in supporting the regime of disputed Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

CUBA CITES LACK OF EVIDENCE IN MYSTERIOUS SONIC ATTACKS ON DIPLOMATS

In a tweet on Monday, National Security Adviser John Bolton blamed Cuba for its role in “fomenting repression in Venezuela” and said the U.S. would be tightening financial restrictions.

“Cuba’s role in usurping democracy and fomenting repression in Venezuela is clear,” Bolton tweeted. “That’s why the U.S. will continue to tighten financial restrictions on Cuba’s military and intel services. The region’s democracies should condemn the Cuba regime.”

Caracas and other parts of the South American nation continue to be plagued by widespread shortages of basic supplies and political unrest.

On Friday, the U.S. imposed sanctions on six high-ranking members of the Venezuelan security forces and revoked the visas of other officials and their relatives in the latest effort to pressure Maduro to relinquish power.

The sanctions are in response to the blocking of humanitarian aid convoys last week while the visa revocations on dozens of individuals are intended to punish people who have flourished amid the South American country's dire economic crisis, Elliott Abrams, the special representative for Venezuela, told reporters.

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Maduro's forces fired tear gas and buckshot at activists trying to deliver humanitarian aid in violent clashes on Feb. 23, leaving two people dead and about 300 injured.

"Maduro supporters that abuse or violate human rights, steal from the Venezuelan people or undermine Venezuela's democracy are not welcome in the United States," Abrams said. "Neither are their family members who enjoy a privileged lifestyle at the expense of the liberty and prosperity of millions of Venezuelans."

Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido arrived back in the country on Monday as hundreds of protestors gathered in a Caracas plaza, heeding a call from the self-declared interim president to turn out for his expected return to Venezuela.

Dozens of countries – including the U.S. – have recognized Guaido as Venezuela's legitimate leader, arguing that last year's re-election of Maduro was invalid.

Guaido returned from a tour of several Latin American nation where he was hoping to drum up support among regional leaders for his claim to leadership in Venezuela.

After nearly 60 years of a trade embargo, meanwhile, the Cuban economy is in a period of consistently low growth of about 1 percent a year, with foreign investment at roughly $2 billion. But tourism, remittances and subsidized oil from Venezuela have allowed the government to maintain basic services.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Venezuelan activist Tamara Sujú visits London to ask the United Kingdom, and specifically Dominic Raab, to pressure the International Criminal Court to investigate claims of torture and human rights abuses by the Nicolás Maduro government.