Venezuela released imprisoned opposition figures, activists and journalists on Thursday, the government described the move as a gesture to “seek peace,” according to an Associated Press report.
The releases came less than a week after former President Nicolás Maduro was captured by U.S. forces to face drug-trafficking charges, and amid sustained U.S. pressure on Maduro allies, AP said. U.S. President Donald Trump said in a Fox News interview that the releases came at the request of the United States.
Trump praised acting President Delcy Rodríguez, telling Fox News host Sean Hannity that “they’ve been great. … Everything we’ve wanted, they’ve given us.” In remarks carried by AP, Jorge Rodríguez, brother of the acting president and head of Venezuela’s National Assembly, said a “significant number” of people would be freed, but it was not yet clear who or how many would be released as of late Thursday night.
Jorge Rodríguez said the step should be seen as “Consider this a gesture by the Bolivarian (Venezuelan) government, which is broadly intended to seek peace,” AP reported. The opposition and the U.S. government have long demanded broader releases of imprisoned politicians, critics and civil society members, while the Venezuelan government has maintained that it does not hold prisoners for political reasons.
Among the high-profile releases, AP reported that Biagio Pilieri, an opposition leader involved in María Corina Machado’s 2024 presidential campaign, was freed, according to Foro Penal. AP also reported that Enrique Márquez, a former electoral authority and 2024 presidential candidate, was among those released, and said journalists posted social media videos showing Márquez embracing loved ones on the prison’s grounds, including a message in which he told family members, “Soon I will be with you all.”
Five Spanish citizens were released in the afternoon, AP said, including Rocío San Miguel. As night progressed, reports of more detainees walking free continued to trickle out, while relatives waited outside a prison in Guatire, about an hour east of Caracas, briefly chanting “Libertad! Libertad!”—“Freedom! Freedom!”—according to the report.
AP said Machado, who Trump has snubbed by endorsing Rodríguez to lead the transition, called the move “an act of moral restitution.” In an audio message from exile addressed to families of released detainees, Machado said, “Nothing brings back the stolen years,” and urged relatives to take comfort that “injustice will not be eternal and that the truth, though badly wounded, eventually prevails.”
Alfredo Romero, president of Foro Penal, expressed cautious hope that the releases are the beginning of dismantling what he described as a repressive system, and warned against what he called “a mere gesture, a charade of releasing some prisoners and incarcerating others.” The AP report noted that Venezuelan authorities have said they detained more than 2,000 people after the 2024 election, and that the government denies there are prisoners unjustly detained, accusing them of plotting to destabilize Maduro’s government. Foro Penal said that as of Dec. 29, 2025, there were 863 people detained in Venezuela “for political reasons.”
Spanish officials said Thursday that five of their citizens, including dual national San Miguel, had been released and would soon return to Spain. Speaking to Spanish broadcaster RNE, Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares identified the other freed Spanish nationals as Andrés Martínez, José María Basoa, Ernesto Gorbe and Miguel Moreno, AP reported.
AP reported that families rushed to prisons across the country seeking information. Outside the Guatire prison, Pedro Durán, 60, said he was hoping to reunite with his brother Franklin Durán, who his family says was detained in 2021 on charges of trying to overthrow Maduro’s government. “I don’t have words to express the emotion I’m feeling,” Durán said, adding, “We’re feeling a lot of hope … We’re just waiting now.” He also said, “Of course everyone here is very scared, but what more could (the government) do to us that they haven’t done already.”
Ronal Rodríguez, a researcher at the Venezuelan Observatory at the University of Rosario in Bogotá, told AP that the government releases prisoners at politically strategic moments. He said the government uses detainees “like a bargaining chip,” and said it would be telling to see how many people are freed, whether releases include high-profile prisoners, and under what conditions.
The AP report also described how Venezuela released 10 jailed U.S. citizens and permanent residents in July 2025 in exchange for the repatriation of over 200 Venezuelans deported by the Trump administration to El Salvador, where they had been held in a prison built to house criminal gangs. Separately, the report said the Trump administration seized a pair of sanctioned tankers transporting petroleum and announced plans to relax some sanctions so the U.S. can oversee sales of Venezuela’s petroleum worldwide.
In the same Fox News interview, Trump told Hannity that Machado may be visiting Washington next week and said he might meet with her. “I understand she’s coming in next week some time and I look forward to saying hello to her,” Trump said. “And I’ve heard that she wants to do that,” AP reported.