Venezuelan prosecutors sought an arrest warrant on Monday, September 2, for opposition presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, who claims to have rightfully won a July election that authorities awarded to incumbent Nicolas Maduro.
The public prosecutor's office published a letter on social media it had sent to a "terrorism" judge, asking for a warrant on charges related to the opposition's insistence that Maduro and his allies stole the election.
Venezuela's National Electoral Council (CNE), most of its members friendly to 61-year-old Maduro, declared him the winner of the July 28 vote – an outcome disputed by the opposition and much of the international community.
The United States, the European Union and several Latin American countries have refused to recognize the result without seeing detailed voting results.
The CNE has said it cannot publish the records as hackers had corrupted the data, though observers have said there was no evidence of that.
Gonzalez Urrutia, a retired diplomat who replaced opposition leader Maria Corina Machado on the ballot at the last minute, has been in hiding since shortly after the election.
Maduro has asked for his arrest and that of Machado, who was barred by Venezuelan institutions from seeking election on charges widely dismissed as trumped up.
The opposition published its own polling-station election results, which it says shows Gonzalez Urrutia won the race by a wide margin.
This is the origin of the charges against him, which include "usurpation" of public functions, "forgery" of a public document, incitement to disobedience, sabotage, and "association" with organized crime and financiers of "terrorism."
Gonzalez Urrutia has ignore three summons to appear before prosecutors.