Two of Venezuela’s leading opposition figures were taken from their homes in the middle of the night by state security agents on Tuesday, in President Nicolas Maduro’s first moves against his enemies since a widely denounced vote giving his government nearly unlimited powers. “Maduro may lock up two prominent political prisoners, but he cannot silence the millions of Venezuelans who oppose his government, nor key democratic leaders abroad who know that these detentions are desperate moves to cling to power at the expense of Venezuela’s democracy and the rights of its people.”

Lopez’s wife Lilian Tintori posted a video of the moment of the arrest of her husband on Twitter. In a video posted on Twitter by Lilian Tintori, López’s wife, masked security forces in riot gear can be seen in front of what appears to be the family’s house, leading a man from the door and putting him in an official car. Lopez was detained three years after protests against President Nicolas Maduro's government and sentenced to more than a decade in prison on charges that include inciting protesters to violence. “12:27 in the morning: the moment when the dictatorship kidnaps Leopoldo at my house.”

López was granted house arrest early last month after spending three years in the Ramo Verde prison. Ledezma has been under house arrest since 2015 after being imprisoned on charges that he was plotting a coup against Maduro. Maduro brushed off the move, saying: “The threats and sanctions of the empire don’t intimidate me for a moment. “I don’t listen to orders from the empire, not now or ever ... Bring on more sanctions, Donald Trump.”

A few hours earlier, Washington added Maduro to a steadily growing list of high-ranking Venezuelan officials targeted by financial sanctions, escalating a tactic that has so far failed to alter his socialist government’s behaviour. For now, the Trump administration has not delivered on threats to sanction Venezuela’s oil industry, which could undermine Maduro’s government but raise U.S. gas prices and deepen the humanitarian crisis here. The electoral council’s lone opposition member, Luis Emilio Rondón, said Tuesday he couldn’t back Sunday’s results, citing ignored protocols, skipped audits and other irregularities.
Venezuelan opposition leaders Leopoldo López and Mayor of Caracas Antonio Ledezma are seized at their homes overnight by the Bolivarian Intelligence Service (SEBIN) and taken to Ramo Verde Prison. They had been arrested previously by the Venezuelan government, but were under house arrest at the time of being seized.