Joshua Holt, American jailed in Venezuela for two years, released

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/27/joshua-holt-jailed-venezuela-released

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Joshua Holt, who traveled to Venezuela from Utah in 2016 to marry a Spanish-speaking Mormon woman but soon found himself jailed and branded the CIA’s top spy in Latin America, was set free on Saturday.

Holt and his wife, Thamara Caleno, arrived in Washington on Saturday evening for a tearful reunion with his parents, Laurie and Jason Holt. A few hours later, Donald Trump welcomed them to the White House.

“Those two years, they were a very, very, very difficult two years,” said an emotional Holt, sitting next to Trump in the Oval Office. “Not really the great vacation that I was looking for … I’m just so grateful for what you guys have done.”

To Holt, Trump said: “You’ve gone through a lot. More than most people could endure.”

Laurie Holt thanked Trump and lawmakers for her son’s safe return, adding: “I also want to say thank you to President [Nicolás] Maduro for releasing Josh and letting him to come home.”

Their release came one day after Bob Corker of Tennessee, chair of the Senate foreign relations committee, held a surprise meeting in Caracas with Venezuelan president Maduro, who the Trump administration says runs a “dictatorship” and just won re-election in a “sham” vote. Trump, in a tweet, described Holt as a “hostage”. The US contended Holt was held on trumped up charges.

Months of secret backchannel talks between an aide to Corker and close allies of Maduro preceded the return. Yet Holt’s release had seemed unlikely even a week ago.

Joining Trump in the Oval Officer were Corker, Utah senators Orrin Hatch and Mike Lee and Utah representative Mia Love. The lawmakers thanked Trump for his support.

The White House learned from Corker on Friday of Holt’s impending release, according to a US official who has closely followed Holt’s plight and spoke on condition of anonymity to describe the private talks. Holt and his wife were reunited at the Caracas airport with her daughter from a previous relationship, and all three boarded a chartered flight to Washington.

“We are on our way home,” Corker tweeted. When he departed the Caracas airport earlier, Holt told the Associated Press the ordeal had left him “exhausted”.

Venezuela’s communications minister, Jorge Rodriguez, said the release was a goodwill gesture that followed months of dialogue between the Maduro government and US lawmakers.

“We’re praying that this type of gesture … will allow us to strengthen what we’ve always sought: dialogue, harmony, respect for our independence and respect for our sovereignty,” he said.

Holt, now 26, set out for the South American country in June 2016 to marry a woman he met online while looking for Spanish-speaking Mormons who could help him improve his Spanish. He had planned to spend several months in Caracas that summer with his new wife and her two daughters, to secure their visas so they could move with him to the US.

Instead, the couple was arrested on 30 June 2016 at her family’s apartment in a government housing complex on the outskirts of Caracas. Authorities accused Holt of stockpiling an assault rifle and grenades, and suggested that his case was linked to other unspecified US attempts to undermine Maduro’s rule amid deep economic and political turbulence.

They were held in a notorious Caracas prison, run by the secret police, that also is home to dozens of top Maduro opponents jailed during the past few years of political unrest in the country. Their trial was set to begin this month after repeated delays that led the Trump administration to question the motives for his detention.

Until Trump’s tweet on Saturday, the US had stopped short of publicly calling Holt a “hostage”.

Holt’s release looked unlikely a week ago, when he appeared in a clandestinely shot video railing against the Maduro government and saying his life was threatened in a prison riot. In retaliation, socialist party boss Diosdado Cabello, a powerful Maduro ally, said on state television that Holt was the CIA’s top spy in Latin America.

Senator Marco Rubio, of Florida, spoke to Trump at length on Friday night and later said the couple’s release “will in no way change US policy toward the dictatorship in Venezuela”. The White House press secretary issued a statement to that point on Saturday night, saying policy was not changing even while thanking the government for releasing the Holts. The statement also called the recent elections “illegitimate” and urged the release of all political prisoners.

The Trump administration has threatened crippling oil sanctions on Venezuela for Maduro’s decision to go forward with the presidential election last week.