Delcy Rodríguez also plans to close notorious El Helicoide prison as opposition figures remain wary over new leadership
Venezuela’s acting president announced on Friday a proposal for mass amnesty in the country, in her latest significant reform since the US toppling of Nicolás Maduro just weeks ago.
In a speech at the Venezuelan supreme court attended by top government officials, Delcy Rodríguez said she would propose a “general amnesty law covering the entire period of political violence from 1999 to the present”.
Leftist revolutionary Hugo Chávez assumed the presidency in 1999, and was succeeded upon his death in 2013 by Maduro, who oversaw an increasingly authoritarian government and whose two re-elections were widely dismissed as fraudulent.
“This law will serve to heal the wounds left by political confrontation, fuelled by violence and extremism. It will allow us to put justice back on track in our country,” Rodríguez said, also announcing a “major national consultation for a new judicial system”.
