{"id":292849,"date":"2026-01-19T21:39:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T21:39:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/292849\/"},"modified":"2026-01-19T21:39:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T21:39:07","slug":"irish-citizen-imprisoned-in-venezuela-flown-to-prague-in-flow-of-prisoner-releases-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/292849\/","title":{"rendered":"Irish citizen imprisoned in Venezuela flown to Prague in flow of prisoner releases \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">An Irish citizen imprisoned in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/venezuela\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/venezuela\/\">Venezuela<\/a> has been freed and is now in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/prague\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/prague\/\">Prague<\/a>, following a flow of prisoner releases following the United States capture of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/nicolas-maduro\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/nicolas-maduro\/\">Nicolas Maduro<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Alongside the Irish citizen, Venezuela freed Czech, Hungarian, Dutch and German citizens imprisoned in the country, according to a Reuters report. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">A plane carrying the freed citizens landed at Prague airport, where family members waited for their arrival. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">A spokesperson for the Department of Foreign Affairs confirmed to The Irish Times it is \u201caware of the case\u201d involving the Irish citizen and \u201cprovided consular assistance to the citizen involved\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The department would not say anything further as it does not comment on individual cases.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The Czech man released had been detained in 2024 when Venezuelan authorities accused him of planning to take part in a plot to kill Mr Maduro, who was still in power as president at the time, and to overthrow the government, according to Czech media.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The Czech foreign ministry said last year that the man had been imprisoned \u201cwithout charges and a fair trial\u201d. Venezuelan human rights group Foro Penal said he was detained for political reasons.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cAfter several weeks of intense negotiations, we managed to secure (his) release,\u201d Petr Macinka, deputy prime minister for the Czech Republic, told a press conference, adding that his country was ready to renew diplomatic relations with Venezuela.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Germany\u2019s foreign minister Johann Wadephul said on X that the release of three Germans was a \u201cgesture towards more constructive relations\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Jorge Rodriguez, the president of Venezuela\u2019s National Assembly, and US president Donald Trump had both said large numbers of prisoners would be released after the US captured Mr Maduro at the start of the year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Venezuela said this week that more than 400 people have been released. Rights groups say the figure is smaller.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph b-it-article-body__interstitial-link\">[\u00a0<a aria-label=\"Open related story\" class=\"c-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/world\/americas\/2026\/01\/16\/two-meetings-one-clear-choice-trump-opts-for-oil-over-democracy\/\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Two meetings, one clear choice: Trump opts for oil over democracyOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An Irish citizen imprisoned in Venezuela has been freed and is now in Prague, following a flow of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":292850,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,13,14,6,11,12,15,16,5,42875,2639,7,8,4450,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-292849","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-featured-news","11":"tag-featurednews","12":"tag-headlines","13":"tag-latest-news","14":"tag-latestnews","15":"tag-main-news","16":"tag-mainnews","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-nicolas-maduro","19":"tag-prague","20":"tag-top-stories","21":"tag-topstories","22":"tag-venezuela","23":"tag-world","24":"tag-world-news","25":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115923934407802755","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=292849"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292849\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/292850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}