arrest warrant issued against

A court issued an arrest warrant has been issued against Edmundo González Urrutia, who claims victory in the July 28 presidential elections in which Nicolás Maduro was declared the winner amid allegations of fraud, the Attorney General’s Office said on Monday.

“The court of first instance in charge of control at the national level agrees to an arrest warrant against Edmundo González Urrutia for serious crimes,” wrote the Public Ministry on its Instagram account, minutes after announcing that it was requesting the arrest.

The Public Prosecutor’s Office has requested a court with jurisdiction over terrorism to issue an arrest warrant against González Urrutia for alleged crimes related to the elections, including “disobedience of laws”, “conspiracy”, “usurpation of functions” and “sabotage”.

González Urrutia, 75 years old, was summoned to testify before the Prosecutor’s Office on three occasions. He did not attend, although the third summons coincided with a power outage throughout the country on Friday, August 30.

The diplomat, who has been in hiding since July 30, argued that the Public Prosecutor’s Office was acting as a “political accuser” who would subject him to a trial “without guarantees of independence and due process.”

The subpoenas targeted the website where the opposition posted copies of more than 80% of the voting records, which it claims prove González Urrutia’s victory on July 28 and Maduro’s fraud.

The investigation into González Urrutia is related to the publication of a website on which the main opposition coalition – the Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD) – claims to have uploaded 83.5% of the electoral records collected by witnesses and polling station members on election night, to support its claim of fraud in the presidential elections.

The PUD released these records, which the Executive calls “false,” after the National Electoral Council (CNE) declared Nicolás Maduro the winner of the elections, which has been questioned by numerous countries, some of which support that González Urrutia won by a wide margin.

The Prosecutor’s Office summoned the PUD standard-bearer – initially for Monday and, when he did not attend, summoned him for Tuesday and then for last Friday – for “the alleged commission of the crimes of usurpation of functions, forgery of public documents, instigation to disobedience of the law, computer crimes, criminal association and conspiracy.”

On Thursday, when the third summons was made public, The Prosecutor’s Office had warned that if González did not appear again, “a corresponding arrest warrant would be issued” considering that he “is in the presence of a risk of flight”.