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Venezuela Frees Jailed U.S. Filmmaker and Expels Him Kerry Meets With Official Of Venezuela To Set Talks
(about 11 hours later)
CARACAS, Venezuela — An American documentary filmmaker arrested here in April and accused of seeking to topple the government was expelled from the country on Wednesday, officials and his lawyers said. CARACAS, Venezuela — After months of tensions between the United States and Venezuela, Secretary of State John Kerry met on Wednesday with the Venezuelan foreign minister, Elías Jaua, in Antigua, Guatemala, and announced the start of talks aimed at improving relations between the two countries.
The American, Tim Tracy, was put on an early commercial flight to Miami, according to his lawyers, Daniel Rosales and César Mirabal. The overture came after another hopeful sign, Venezuela’s release from jail and subsequent expulsion of an American documentary filmmaker who had been accused of seeking to undermine the government. The filmmaker, Tim Tracy, was put on a commercial flight to Miami on Wednesday morning.
Mr. Rosales said government officials filed court papers late Tuesday saying there was insufficient evidence to charge Mr. Tracy, who had been imprisoned since his arrest. “We agreed today, both of us, Venezuela and the United States, that we would like to see our countries find a new way forward, establish a more constructive and positive relationship,” Mr. Kerry said after meeting with Mr. Jaua on the sideline of a session of the General Assembly of the Organization of American States. American officials said Venezuela had requested the meeting.
Officials at the American Embassy and the Venezuelan Information Ministry confirmed that Mr. Tracy had been expelled. Appearing separately, Mr. Jaua said, “We have faith and confidence that this meeting marks the start of a relationship of respect.”
Mr. Tracy was arrested on April 24 by the intelligence police. Officials said he had been trained as a spy and was part of a conspiracy to set off a civil war in Venezuela. They said they had been tracking his activities for months. The two men were photographed shaking hands in what a senior Obama administration official said appeared to be the first public meeting of top officials from the two countries since President Obama and the Venezuelan president at the time, Hugo Chávez, shook hands in a brief encounter at a regional summit meeting in 2009.
Mr. Tracy had been in Venezuela working on a documentary about the nation’s political divide. He had spent time with government supporters in a Caracas slum and with student demonstrators opposed to the government. It was his contacts with the students that officials focused on, accusing him of funneling money to them for subversive purposes. Mr. Kerry said the countries had agreed “that there will be an ongoing and continuing dialogue at a high level” between the State Department and the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry.
In a television interview last month during a visit to Latin America, President Obama said the accusations against Mr. Tracy were “ridiculous.” He expressed hope that the countries could “quickly move to the appointment of ambassadors.” Mr. Chávez expelled the American ambassador in 2008, accusing the United States of backing a group of military officers plotting a coup against him. In response, the United States expelled the Venezuelan ambassador.
Tensions have been high in Venezuela since the death on March 5 of the country’s longtime president, Hugo Chávez. Mr. Tracy was arrested 10 days after Mr. Chávez’s handpicked successor, Nicolás Maduro, was elected president by a narrow margin over Henrique Capriles Radonski, an opposition candidate. Mr. Capriles has challenged the election results. The two countries quietly began similar talks aimed at improving relations late last year, but they ground to a halt a few weeks after Mr. Chávez, a socialist who often made the United States out to be a villain, flew to Cuba in early December for cancer surgery. Mr. Chávez died in March. In April, his handpicked successor, Nicolás Maduro, narrowly won an election to replace him.
For months, Mr. Maduro has warned darkly of conspiracies linked to the United States government or to former American government officials. He has talked of plots to kill him or other top government figures or to create havoc in order to overthrow the government. In March, on the day Mr. Chávez died, Mr. Maduro expelled two American officials, accusing them of seeking to conduct “destabilizing projects.” In the previous round of talks, the two countries agreed to focus on topics of potential cooperation, including the fight against drug trafficking, and to have the regional head of the Drug Enforcement Administration meet Venezuelan counterparts in Caracas — a meeting that never occurred.
Mr. Tracy’s arrest became one more obstacle to improving relations with the United States, which have been at a low point. Mr. Maduro, who is struggling with economic problems and faces great pressures from within Mr. Chávez’s movement and from a re-energized opposition, has repeatedly used the United States as a political punching bag and accused it of ties to purported plots to undermine or overthrow his government.

María Eugenia Díaz contributed reporting.

Last month, Mr. Maduro called Mr. Obama “the big boss of the devils” and said Mr. Obama planned to provoke violence in Venezuela to have an excuse to intervene.
On the day Mr. Chávez died, Mr. Maduro expelled two military attaches at the American Embassy, saying they were trying to destabilize the country. He has speculated that the United States may have found a way to cause Mr. Chávez’s cancer.
In April, the Maduro government arrested Mr. Tracy, the filmmaker, accusing him of being a spy seeking to set off a civil war in Venezuela by funneling money to student protesters. It never made public any evidence to support the charges against Mr. Tracy, who said he had come to Venezuela to make a documentary about the country’s political divide.
In a television interview last month, Mr. Obama called the accusations “ridiculous.” Mr. Kerry on Wednesday called Mr. Tracy’s release “a very positive development.”
The Venezuelan interior minister, Miguel Rodríguez Torres, said Mr. Maduro had ordered Mr. Tracy’s expulsion.

William Neuman reported from Caracas, and Randal C. Archibold from Antigua, Guatemala. María Eugenia Díaz contributed reporting from Caracas.