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FILE PHOTO: Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro attends to a military event in Caracas, Venezuela August 4, 2018.
On Sunday, Chilean prosecutors said they had arrested a suspect in the murder of Ronald Ojeda, a 32-year-old Venezuelan ex-lieutenant and vocal critic of the government of President Nicolás Maduro, who was found dead in Santiago on Friday. Authorities said the lack of ransom demands and Ojeda's political history means he may have been abducted and killed by Venezuelan agents.
Ojeda had fled Caracas for Santiago in 2017, where he lived as a political refugee. He was charged with treason by the Venezuelan government in January, just weeks before he was abducted by four armed men on Feb. 21. His body was found encased in cement in a suitcase following a nine-day search. The detained suspect is a 17-year-old Venezuelan national.
While Venezuela denies involvement in Ojeda’s death, Maduro had already begun cracking down on political opponents in advance of this year’s elections, targeting key figures and organizations with accusations and arrests. In late January, Venezuela’s top court upheld an order from the Comptroller’s office barring popular opposition politician María Corina Machado from running for president, leading to accusations he was planning “a fraudulent election.”
In response, the US reimposed some sanctions that had been lifted in exchange for a promise of political reform and the release of political prisoners. Ojeda’s death may now lead Washington to reimpose additional sanctions on Venezuelan energy, mining, and secondary debt trading, despite the possible effect on global oil supplies and migration pressures.