text: 'Please Help Me!' American Caught In Venezuelan Prison Riot Pleads On Video 
   
   Enlarge this image toggle caption Fernando Llano/AP Fernando Llano/AP 
   
   Joshua Holt — a Mormon missionary from Utah jailed in Venezuela's most notorious prison — has uploaded an emotional video plea for his freedom, saying that his life is under threat amid an ongoing riot by fellow inmates. 
   
   Holt, 26, who traveled to Venezuela in 2016 to marry Thamara Candelo, a woman he met online, has spent the past two years in the El Helicoide prison without charge after police said they found weapons in the couple's Caracas apartment. 
   
   As we reported last year: 
   
   "After their honeymoon last year, the couple settled into Candelo's apartment in a housing project on the outskirts of Caracas. They had planned to move to the U.S. with Candelo's two young daughters, and were waiting for approval for her U.S. visa. But on June 30, an anti-gang police squad burst into Candelo's apartment, where agents claimed to find an AK-47 assault rifle and a grenade. Holt and Candelo were hauled off to jail." 
   
   In two 20-second videos shot on a cellphone and posted on his Facebook page, Holt says he has "been begging my government for two years. They say they're doing things but I'm still here." 
   
   "Please, my fellow Americans don't allow me to continue suffering in Venezuela," Holt said in a written message, also posted on his Facebook page. "I am not a political pawn I am a human being a child of God and I just want to live happy with my wife and children. I have NEVER done anything wrong in my life. Please help me!" 
   
   Although the extent of the unrest was not known, in another Facebook post, Holt says, "the prison where I am at has fallen and the guards are here and people are trying to break in my room and kill me. WHAT DO WE DO?" 
   
   Chief Prosecutor Tarek William Saab announced in a tweet that he had sent a commission to the prison and that the parties had expressed a "willingness to carry out the respective coordination ... in order to resolve the situation." 
   
   The Associated Press reports: ||||| (CNN) Inmates have revolted and taken control of a notorious prison in Venezuela, as the volatile country braces for presidential elections decried as illegitimate by regional leaders. 
   
   Men identifying themselves as prisoners posted videos online saying they had taken over a detention center in the Helicoide ("the Helix"), the headquarters of intelligence agency Sebin in the capital, Caracas, because of torture and human rights violations. 
   
   The US embassy in Venezuela expressed concern over the incident, after an American political prisoner Joshua Holt, a former Mormon missionary from Utah , posted a video on social media saying he feared for his life. 
   
   ALERT If the United States does not promptly rescue Joshua Holt he could be lynched by Maduro's regime agents on next hours. Keep in mind, the rule of law DOES NOT exist in Venezuela... @POTUS @VP @SecPompeo pic.twitter.com/fNAGyGOnmA 
   
   Venezuelan authorities later said they had "normalized" the situation at the prison, but inmates refuted the claim. 
   
   Venezuelans will head to the polls Sunday to elect a new president as the country is roiled by an economic and social crisis, with millions suffering food and medicine shortages, hyperinflation and growing insecurity. 
   
   In a statement released on Monday, representatives from 10 Latin American countries along with Spain and the United States reiterated their "condemnation of the authoritarian regime" of President Nicolas Maduro. The group also issued a final request for the government to suspend the elections. 
   
   There have been repeated calls from leaders in the region to suspend the election because it is "illegitimate" and lacking in "credibility." 
   
   The Helicoide prison's inmates include jailed opponents of Maduro, as well as US citizen Holt, many of whom have expressed fears over their safety and asked to be freed in postings on social media 
   
   "Joshua Holt and other political prisoners are in danger," the embassy tweeted on its verified account . "The Venezuelan government is directly responsible for their safety and we will hold them responsible if anything happens to them." 
   
   Estamos muy preocupados por el motín en El Helicoide. Joshua Holt y otros ciudadanos estadounidenses están en peligro. El gobierno de Venezuela es directamente responsable por su seguridad y le haremos responsables si algo les sucede. — US Embassy, VE (@usembassyve) May 16, 2018 
   
   Venezuela's Attorney General Tarek Saab later stopped short of claiming the government had regained full control of the detention center in the capital, saying the situation had "normalized". 
   
   Speaking to CNN Espanol , Saab said the uprising was "a protest on behalf of the prisoners" and that he had sent a delegation to hold dialogue with the prisoners, which had reached a "positive agreement". 
   
   Saab rejected prisoner claims of torture, extortion and minors being held inside the center. 
   
   Prisoners, speaking to CNNE, denied that the authorities were in control. 
   
   "Inside the prison, all the prisoners are in control. And at that this moment, the people from the government who have approached us have not offered any solutions, none," Daniel Ceballos, a prisoner and former opposition mayor said, adding they were all resisting and asked that for the public to resist alongside them. 
   
   Todd Robinson, US Embassy charge d'affaires in Venezuela, told reporters outside the country's foreign ministry Wednesday: "The truth is we don't know anything and it seems like the authorities don't know anything either."
target: – As Venezuela gears up for its presidential election Sunday, the economic and social turmoil there continues. But for one American, trapped in the Helicoide prison in Caracas, the stakes are especially high. NPR and CNN report on the plight of Utah's Joshua Holt, a Mormon missionary jailed there in 2016 with his wife, Thamara Candelo, a Venezuelan Mormon Holt met online before heading to Venezuela to marry her. They were waiting on paperwork for Candelo so they could move back to the US, along with her two young daughters, when they were detained in an anti-gang raid in June 2016 and hit with weapons charges. Now, prisoners are rioting in the Helicoide, and Holt, 26, is using social media to plea for help. "The prison where I am at has fallen the guards are here and people are trying to break in my room and kill me. WHAT DO WE DO?" he posted on Facebook Wednesday. Holt's trial on the weapons charges was set to start Tuesday, but he and his wife were never brought to the courthouse, per the AP. "They want to kill me and paint the walls with my blood," he added in another post, begging the US to help him and noting Venezuela's intelligence agency said it won't let him go "as long as my government continues attacking this government." He also uploaded two short video clips making similar pleas, saying, "I've been begging my government for two years. They say they're doing things but I'm still here." On Thursday, the US Embassy in Venezuela tweeted that it's concerned about the situation at the Helicoide and that Holt and other Americans there are in peril. "The Venezuelan government is directly responsible for its security and we will hold it responsible if something happens to them," the embassy added. (The "illegal" closing of a Kellogg factory there.)