Venezuela Frees Three Political Prisoners After 23 Years, But Hundreds Remain Behind Bars

Venezuela released three former Caracas Metropolitan Police officers after 23 years in prison, ending one of the longest political detention cases in Latin America while reopening a painful national question: how many more Venezuelans remain trapped in a justice system built for punishment, silence and fear.

Héctor Rovaín, Erasmo Bolívar and Luis Molina walked out of the Fénix prison complex in Lara state late Tuesday, days after the government announced a new round of releases. National Assembly President Jorge Rodríguez said Venezuela would free 300 detainees this week, including three police officers jailed since 2003, elderly prisoners and inmates with medical conditions. He did not describe them as political prisoners. Venezuela's government has long denied holding people for political reasons, saying detainees were convicted of crimes.

For the men and their families, however, the moment closed a 23-year chapter that opponents of Chavismo had described for years as a political kidnapping. The officers had been imprisoned over the violence of April 11, 2002, near Puente Llaguno in Caracas, when 19 people were killed and more than 100 were wounded during the crisis that briefly removed Hugo Chávez from power. Their relatives and opposition leaders said the case was politically driven and marked by judicial irregularities.

Bolívar, visibly overwhelmed after leaving prison, thanked those who kept the case alive. "I thank God and all those people who never forgot us. To my community in La Guaira, I love you very much. It has not been easy. It has been a Via Crucis," he said in comments shared by Venezuelan prison watchdogs. "I know it will not be easy to reintegrate after more than two decades."

He also sent a message to the families of those still waiting outside prisons. "The first thing I have to tell the relatives of political prisoners is to keep the faith. Be strong. Yes, it can be done. Going through this process is not easy," Bolívar said.

The release came after renewed pressure from opposition leader María Corina Machado, who had demanded freedom for the former police officers and described their imprisonment as nearly 23 years of being "kidnapped in prison." Machado has framed the prisoner issue as part of a broader fight for democratic transition, saying Venezuelans will not settle for anything less than "full democracy, justice and freedom."

The timing also followed national outrage over the deaths of Víctor Hugo Quero and his mother, Carmen Navas. Quero, considered a political prisoner by rights groups, was detained in January 2025 and died in state custody in July 2025, but authorities did not notify his family for months. Navas, 82, spent that time going to prisons, courts and government offices asking for proof that her son was alive. She died 10 days after authorities finally confirmed his death.

Students in Caracas later protested with Navas' image and chanted, "They didn't die; they were killed!" Student leader Miguel Ángel Suárez told AP the case stirred "rage" among Venezuelan youth. The deaths turned the prisoner crisis back into a national wound, especially for families who say enforced disappearance, delayed information and medical neglect have become tools of political control.

The releases do not end the crisis. Foro Penal's April 27 count listed 454 political prisoners in Venezuela, including 410 men, 44 women, 268 civilians, 186 military detainees and one adolescent. AP also reported this week that more than 400 people remain imprisoned for political reasons, according to the rights group.

The move has also put new scrutiny on acting President Delcy Rodríguez. She now presents the releases as part of a new political phase, but human rights investigators and former detainees have long linked Venezuela's ruling apparatus, including senior officials who remained in power under Rodríguez, to arbitrary detention, torture and political persecution. The Guardian reported that El Helicoide, the Caracas detention center Rodríguez moved to transform into a cultural and sports site, became Venezuela's most notorious torture center for political prisoners under Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro. Human rights advocates criticized the plan as an attempt to scrub away the building's past instead of preserving it as a memorial and evidence site.

A Miami Herald report on recent Inter-American Court testimony said witnesses described a Venezuelan torture system and warned that officials accused of overseeing abuses remain in power under Delcy Rodríguez. The United Nations has also documented patterns of torture, sexual violence and politically motivated persecution in Venezuela, saying grave crimes and human rights violations were committed as part of state repression.

That is why activists say selected releases cannot be treated as absolution. Delcy Rodríguez's government may be opening some prison doors, but critics argue that many of the people now claiming reform were part of, or benefited from, the system that jailed opponents, silenced families and turned detention centers into instruments of fear.

President Donald Trump has also claimed pressure on Caracas, saying he would secure the release of all Venezuelan political prisoners. "We're gonna get them all out," Trump said, according to AP.

For Rovaín, Bolívar and Molina, freedom came after almost a generation behind bars. For Venezuela, it ended one emblematic case, but not the machinery that produced it. More than 400 political prisoners remain, and families are still demanding the same things Carmen Navas asked for until her final days: proof of life, truth and justice.