Sawt Falasteen - Venezuela opposition activist dies in custody

Jesus Martinez, 36, died in a hospital in the eastern city of Barcelona from a heart problem associated with complications from type II diabetes.

On Wednesday, his family had reported that one of his legs would have to be amputated due to necrosis, the death of body tissue.

Martinez was a member of the Vente Venezuela party of opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, who has denounced President Nicolas Maduro's election to a third term as fraudulent.

The opposition published its own tally of results from individual polling stations, which appeared to show its candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia easily winning the July 28 vote.

Reacting to Martinez's death, Machado told AFP: "This is a crime, this is murder."

She said that Martinez's fellow prisoners and mother had for days begged prison guards to transfer him to hospital

"When he arrived at the hospital..., he was practically beyond saving," she said.

On X she called his death "another crime by Maduro and his regime."

Martínez was arrested on July 29, a few hours after Maduro's controversial claim to have won a third term which triggered large-scale protests that were harshly repressed.

Only a handful of countries, including Venezuela ally Russia, have recognized Maduro's victory.

Martinez was part of the opposition's team of election monitors and his arrest was considered political.

He was arrested "without a search warrant and without any reason," said Machado.

She said he was held in grim conditions in prison, "was severely mistreated and suffered such poor hygiene conditions that he had necrosis in both legs."

She added that doctors had said he would need both legs amputated but held out little hope of him recovering.

- Political prisoners -

At least 28 people were killed and over 200 injured in the post-election unrest, according to Attorney General Tarek William Saab.

Around 2,400 people, some of them minors, were arrested, he added in an interview this week with AFP.

Saab refused to say how many protesters were still in custody, insisting that "many have been freed."

The Venezuelan rights NGO Foro Penal says 1,979 people, including 69 teenagers and 10 people with disabilities, are being held as political prisoners in the country.

"We are talking about....the highest number of political prisoners in the entire American continent," Foro Penal's president Alfredo Romero told reporters.

Z.AlNajjar--SF-PST