April 21 (Bloomberg) -- Venezuelan opposition leader and Maracaibo Mayor Manuel Rosales, who was scheduled to appear in court yesterday on corruption charges, has left the country and is seeking political asylum in Peru.
| We saw this one coming. I'm surprised he went to Peru and not either Colombia or Panama. |
The mayor is being "politically persecuted," said his wife, Eveling Rosales, in comments broadcast by CNN's Spanish- language channel. Manuel Rosales, 56, lost the 2006 presidential election to President Hugo Chavez.
"The fundamental problem is that there's no credibility in the judicial system, which is a system that's been completely politicized," Leopoldo Lopez, a member of Rosales's Un Nuevo Tiempo party and former mayor of the Caracas borough of Chacao, said in a telephone interview. "This is retaliation and selective repression." |