CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — A powerful U.S. senator traveled to Venezuela Wednesday as pressure mounted on President Nicolas Maduro to hand over a Utah man jailed in the turbulent South American country for nearly two years. He said State Department officials played no role in organizing the trip, which ended Tuesday and added that they were not invited to sit in on Sessions’ meetings as they were by Sen. Dick Durbin, the No. Sessions, whose father is former FBI Director William Sessions, hasn’t faced a serious challenge for re-election in more than a decade and didn’t even have a Democratic opponent in 2016. Hatch’s office refused to comment on the senator’s efforts to secure Holt’s release but said they are unrelated to Durbin’s travel plans. 2 Democrat is also expected to meet with Maduro to discuss the imprisonment of Joshua Holt, who is being held in a Caracas prison along with several top government opponents while awaiting a trial on what the U.S. has called trumped-up weapons charges. The two-day trip came as Maduro’s government is making a full-court press to prevent the Trump administration from imposing crippling oil sanctions on the OPEC nation for what the United States considers Maduro’s flaunting of human rights and democratic norms. Venezuelan authorities alleged Holt was stockpiling “weapons of war.”

U.S. officials have repeatedly demanded Holt’s release on humanitarian grounds, considering the charges against him and his wife, Thamara Caleno Candelo, to be politically motivated.
United States Senator Dick Durbin visits Venezuela to negotiate the release of Joshua Holt, who has been detained for two years awaiting trial on a weapons charge. The United States has been critical of his prosecution.