Supporter of jailed Venezuelan leader dies after clashes as verdict draws close
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Version 0 of 1. One person has died after supporters of a jailed Venezuelan opposition leader, Leopoldo López, clashed with government loyalists outside a Caracas courthouse in anticipation of an impending verdict. Related: Jailed Venezuelan leader's call for street protest reveals divided opposition Members of López’s party arrived early on Thursday morning to wave banners and pray, as they have dozens of times since López’s imprisonment 19 months ago. López is charged with inciting violence in his role as the leader of a sometimes bloody 2014 street protest movement, and could face more than 10 years in prison. At midday, red-shirted government supporters showed up and began chanting that López was a murderer and a terrorist. Some burned the orange flag of López’s Popular Will party and threw bottles at López’s wife as she passed a barricade to enter the court. Lines of police in riot gear separated the two sides, but were unable to prevent direct confrontations and shoving matches. At least two women were hurt during the clashes and one man, 66-year-old Popular Will member Horacio Blanco, died shortly after. López supporters hailed Blanco as a martyr at a rally in an upscale Caracas neighbourhood as the hearing got under way. Popular Will issued a statement saying it held President Nicolás Maduro personally responsible Blanco’s death, which it described as the result of a heart attack brought on by the morning’s violence. The doctor who received Blanco’s body said the cause of death was not immediately clear. López denies calling for flaming street barricades and the destruction of government property during last year’s protests, and says he only called for peaceful demonstrations. His supporters say pro-government forces were to blame for most of the clashes that broke out during the protests and left dozens dead. US officials have made López’s release a key demand for normalizing diplomatic relations. The secretary of state, John Kerry, met with López’s wife in Washington last week and called Venezuela’s foreign minister on Tuesday to speak about the case. |