El Salvador President Nayib Bukele proposed a prisoner exchange with Venezuela on Sunday.
Bukele suggested sending 252 Venezuelans deported from the United States and incarcerated in his country to Venezuela, in exchange for taking “political prisoners” held by Venezuela.
Bukele asked Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to hand over 252 “of the political prisoners you are holding,” he posted on X.
The Salvadoran leader did not specify whether the prisoners would be jailed again after the swap took place.
Venezuela’s chief prosecutor, Tarek William Saab, criticized Bukele’s proposal and accused El Salvador of unlawfully imprisoning the Venezuelans.
Bukele addresses Maduro in social media post
In a post directed at President Maduro, Bukele listed several family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists, and activists detained during the South American country’s electoral crackdown last year.
“The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” Bukele wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that includes the repatriation of 100% of the 252 Venezuelans who were deported, in exchange for the release and surrender of an identical number (252) of the thousands of political prisoners you hold.”
On Saturday, the US Supreme Court temporarily halted US President Donald Trump’s administration from deporting another group of Venezuelan migrants accused of gang ties.
The Trump administration has pressured the Supreme Court to reject the American Civil Liberties Union’s request on the migrants’ behalf.
Edited by: Louis Oelofse
