FILE PHOTO: Juan Guaido, President of the Venezuelan National Assembly and lawmaker of the opposition party Popular Will (Voluntad Popular), speaks during a news conference in Caracas, Venezuela January 10, 2019. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins
January 13, 2019
By Mayela Armas
CARABALLEDA, Venezuela (Reuters) – Venezuelan intelligence agents have released opposition leader and congress chief Juan Guaido after briefly detaining him on the way to a political rally, a congressional official said on Sunday.
Guaido on Friday said he was willing to assume the presidency after the opposition declared President Nicolas Maduro’s second term to be illegitimate.
Information Ministry did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
Maduro was sworn in to a second term on Thursday, defying critics in the United States and Latin America who called him an illegitimate usurper of a nation where economic chaos has wrought a humanitarian crisis.
Guaido, a lawmaker from the hardline Popular Will opposition party who was elected to head the National Assembly on Jan. 5, said on Friday he would only take office with support of the armed forces.
(Reporting by Mayela Armas; Writing by Brian Ellsworth; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
