&imwidth=800&imheight=600&format=webp&quality=medium "Venezuela’s Machado meets Pope Leo, seeks support for release of political prisoners")
Pope Leo met Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Mario Corina Machado on Monday (Jan 23). Machado sought Pope's support for the democratic transition in Venezuela after the United States captured deposed president Nicolas Maduro in a nighttime raid in Caracas. The Vatican, however, did not provide any further details on the meetings while Machado's name was listed among the pope's appointments for the day.
The Nobel laureate urged Pope Leo to "intercede" on behalf of over thousands of political prisoners in her country "I asked him to intercede for all Venezuelans who remain kidnapped and disappeared," Machado said after the meeting, which came just over a week after the US military ouster of long-term authoritarian leader Nicolas Maduro.
"With the accompaniment of the Church and the unprecedented pressure from the United States Government, the defeat of evil in the country is closer," she added in a statement posted to X by her team.
Machado's Vatican visit is part of her broader diplomatic outreach to seek global support for the democratic transition in Venezuela amid political turmoil in the country.
On Friday, Pope Leo XIV, the first pope of US origins, criticised the use of military force as a tool to achieve diplomatic goals and called for the protection of human rights in Venezuela. He called for the country to remain independent after the capture of Maduro at the order of US President Trump.
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Machado, who is due to visit Washington, thanked US President Trump for capturing Nicolas Maduro and offered to share her Nobel Peace Prize with Donald Trump.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee, however, stated that a Peace Prize can not be "shared, revoked and transferred once it is awarded to someone. "A Nobel Prize can neither be revoked, shared, nor transferred to others. Once the announcement has been made, the decision stands for all time," the Nobel Committee's statement read.
