El Salvador offers Venezuela prisoner swap involving US deportees

El Salvador’s president has offered to repatriate 252 Venezuelans deported by the US and imprisoned in his country – if Venezuela releases the same number of political prisoners.
Nayib Bukele appealed directly to Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in a post on social media.
He said many of the Venezuelan deportees had committed “rape and murder”, while Venezuelan political prisoners were jailed only because they opposed Maduro, whose re-election last year is widely disputed.
The Venezuelan government argues that it has no political prisoners – a claim rejected by rights groups.
In a post on X, Bukele wrote: “I want to propose you [Maduro] a humanitarian agreement calling for the repatriation of 100% of the 252 Venezuelans who were deported, in exchange for the release… of the identical number from among the thousands of political prisoners that you hold”.

Source: BBC | Language: English