CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela’s attorney general’s office on Monday requested an arrest warrant be issued for opposition leader Edmundo Gonzalez, after Gonzalez failed to respond to three summons to testify about an opposition website which published detailed results of the country’s disputed presidential election.
The website is being investigated for “usurping the function” of the electoral authority, which says President Nicolas Maduro won the July 28 contest but has not published detailed results.
Venezuela’s national electoral authority and its top court have said Maduro was the victor of the election with just over half of the votes, but tallies posted by the opposition show a resounding victory for Gonzalez.
The opposition, some Western countries and international bodies like a United Nations panel of experts have said the vote was not transparent and demanded publication of full tallies, with some outright decrying fraud.
Ruling party officials including Maduro have accused the opposition of stoking violence and Attorney General Tarek Saab has launched criminal probes into opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, Gonzalez and the website where the opposition posted its copies of ballot box-level vote tallies.
Protests since the vote have led to at least 27 deaths.
(Reporting by Caracas newsroom; Writing by Julia Symmes Cobb)
