{"id":405729,"date":"2026-01-14T02:13:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T02:13:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/405729\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T02:13:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T02:13:10","slug":"interim-venezuelan-government-frees-at-least-4-americans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/405729\/","title":{"rendered":"Interim Venezuelan government frees at least 4 Americans"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n The interim Venezuelan government has freed at least four Americans who were imprisoned in Venezuela, a source familiar with the matter told CNN on Tuesday.\n <\/p>\n

\n It marks the first known release of American detainees since the ouster of Nicol\u00e1s Maduro<\/a> and comes as the interim Venezuelan government, led by Delcy Rodr\u00edguez, has begun freeing dozens of political prisoners.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe welcome the release of detained Americans in Venezuela,\u201d a State Department spokesperson said Tuesday. \u201cThis is an important step in the right direction by the interim authorities.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n CNN previously reported that at least five Americans<\/a> had been detained in Venezuela in recent months. The Maduro government had a long history of detaining Americans to be used for political leverage with the US government.\n <\/p>\n

\n CNN has reached out to the US State Department for comment. The release of the Americans was first reported<\/a> by Bloomberg.\n <\/p>\n

\n CNN has reached out to the Venezuelan government for additional comment.\n <\/p>\n

\n The Trump administration has called for the release of all political prisoners in Venezuela. It is among a number of demands of the interim government made by the administration, which says it has the economic and military leverage to force Rodr\u00edguez and her government to cooperate.\n <\/p>\n

\n Last week, Venezuela began releasing a number of high-profile prisoners, including opposition politicians, in what its government called a gesture \u201cto seek peace.\u201d The pace of the releases has progressed far slower than many had hoped, with hundreds of families continuing to wait in agony for their loved ones to be freed.\n <\/p>\n

\n Of the more than 800 people considered arbitrarily detained for political reasons, the government had released only 56 individuals as of Monday evening, according to human rights organization Penal Forum.\n <\/p>\n

\n On Sunday, US President Donald Trump said Venezuela had \u201cstarted the process, in a BIG WAY, of releasing their political prisoners.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThank you! I hope those prisoners will remember how lucky they got that the USA came along and did what had to be done,\u201d Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.\n <\/p>\n

\n This story has been updated with additional details.\n <\/p>\n

\n CNN\u2019s Michael Rios and Gonzalo Zegarra contributed to this report.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The interim Venezuelan government has freed at least four Americans who were imprisoned in Venezuela, a source familiar…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":399108,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4,450,451,3,452,453],"class_list":["post-405729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=405729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405729\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/399108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}