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Opposition leader jailed in Venezuela

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Tuesday, December 13, 2005

Carlos Ortega, one of the top opposition leaders in Venezuela, has been sentenced to 15 years in jail for inciting civil unrest during a strike.

Following a military coup d'etat in 2002, the two-month strike battered the country's oil industry in a effort to oust the elected president Hugo Chavez.

"From prison, I'll keep working, I'll keep fighting to preserve the freedom, democracy and unity of the people," said Mr Ortega in a telephone interview. "I'm no conspirator or coup plotter and I didn't betray my country."

While Ortega had initially fled Venezuela following the issuing of an arrest warrant in 2003, the BBC reports that he had returned to Venuzuela from Costa Rica last August. Mr Ortega was arrested in March 2005.

Supporters of Mr Ortega have claimed the verdict is 'politically motivated' according to BBC reports, with an appeal being planned.

Mr Ortega's opposition to current Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez is well known. Chavez himself attempted (and failed) to carry out a military coup in 1992. Since then, Chavez was democratically elected president in 1998, 2000, and survived a recall referendum against him in 2004, and the constitutional reform referendum which he supported was supported by over 70% of the population in 1999.

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  This page is archived, and is no longer publicly editable.
Articles presented on Wikinews reflect the specific time at which they were written and published, and do not attempt to encompass events or knowledge which occur or become known after their publication.

Got a correction? Add the template {{editprotected}} to the talk page along with your corrections, and it will be brought to the attention of the administrators.

Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections.

Note that some listed sources or external links may no longer be available online due to age.
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