VENEZUELA’S OPPOSITION leader has fled to Peru to escape corruption charges, which he said were part of a campaign of political persecution by President Hugo Chávez.
Manuel Rosales, a former presidential candidate and the mayor of Maracaibo, Venezuela’s second city, is expected to request political asylum in the Peruvian capital Lima, claiming he would not receive a fair trial in Venezuela.
“He entered as a tourist and as a tourist he can remain for 180 days,” Peru’s foreign minister Jose Antonio Garcia Belaunde said yesterday.
Mr Rosales’s prosecution and his decision to flee have raised the stakes in a bitter tussle between the Chávez government and opposition leaders.
In recent weeks, several opponents of the president have been jailed on corruption charges, threatened with legal action or have had their powers clipped.
“It is very obvious that Manuel Rosales is being politically persecuted,” said Omar Barboza, who will succeed Mr Rosales as leader of the A New Time party.
Prosecutors prepared a 21-page report detailing how Mr Rosales, a veteran and powerful figure in his home state of Zulia, allegedly enriched himself with public funds. He went into hiding three weeks ago and is understood to have arrived in Peru last week with members of his family.
Government supporters say his flight has shown his guilt as well as cowardice. "He fled to evade justice," said Carlos Escarra, deputy leader of Mr Chávez's United Socialist Party of Venezuela.– ( Guardianservice)
