2 years ago
President Joe Biden on Tuesday night announced that two Americans being detained in Venezuela have been released, days after a U.S. delegation visited the country.
"Two Americans who were wrongfully detained in Venezuela will be able to hug their families once more," Biden said in a statement. "We are bringing Gustavo Cardenas and Jorge Fernandez home."
Biden and his predecessors in the White House have been at odds for years with Venezuela's leftist government, now led by the autocratic Nicolás Maduro. In recent weeks, though, there have been indications that the Biden administration might consider Venezuela as an alternate source of energy in order to blunt skyrocketing gas prices and replace oil coming in from Russia. The weekend trip by an American delegation was the highest-level visit by U.S. officials in years.
Cardenas has been held since November 2017. He was one of six executives for Citgo Petroleum who were arrested during a business meeting.
Fernandez was arrested last year; he has been characterized in published reports as a Cuban American tourist who was carrying "a small domestic drone" when he arrived in the country.
"These men are fathers who lost precious time with their children and everyone they love, and their families have suffered every day of their absence," Biden said.
The announcement came hours after Biden talked to the family of Trevor Reed, a former Marine jailed in Russia, about hopes for his release.
"Unjustly holding Americans captive is always unacceptable," the president said in his statement about the release of the two prisoners from Venezuela.
English (US)