What Gonzalez said about Spain’s participation in his exile

Opposition leader and presidential candidate Edmundo González Urrutia issued a statement in Madrid on Thursday in which he clarified that he had not been coerced by the Spanish government to be transferred and granted asylum in this country.

“I have not been coerced by the Government of Spain or by the Spanish ambassador in Venezuela, Ramón Santos,” he says in the statement, which begins by justifying it “in light of the various versions circulating regarding alleged coercion by Spanish state officials.”

González Urrutia stressed that all the arrangements for his transfer “were supervised and facilitated directly by the Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Alabares, ensuring my well-being and freedom of choice at all times.”

“The diplomatic efforts undertaken had the sole purpose of facilitating my departure from the country, without putting any kind of pressure on me,” he said.

“With this clarification, I hope to clear up any doubts or misunderstandings regarding the nature of my transfer and reiterate my gratitude to the Spanish authorities for their support and commitment to the protection of human rights,” the statement concluded.

This statement comes after Venezuela revealed that González Urrutia had signed a document recognizing Nicolás Maduro’s victory in the July 28 elections, which the opposition leader has admitted and clarified that he did so under duress from his country’s authorities, as a condition for traveling to Spain.

On the other hand, the main opposition political organization in Spain, the Popular Party, accused the Spanish government on Thursday of being involved “as a necessary collaborator” in the “coup d’état that has taken place in Venezuela” and pointed to former president José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero as the “great plotter” of the “operation.”

The deputy secretary of Institutional Affairs of the PP, Esteban González Pons, has expressed the “disgust”, “shame” and “indignation” that the video in which the former presidential candidate and Venezuelan opposition leader Edmundo González, exiled since September 8 in Spain, denounces that he signed under “coercion” in the residence of the Spanish ambassador in Caracas a document recognizing the victory of Nicolás Maduro, has produced in him.

These statements have been rejected by the Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs, who has urged the leader of the PP, Alberto Nuñez Feijóo, to invite Pons to retract his statement..