Venezuela Protests 2014: Terrorism, Murder Charge Against Opposition Leader Leopoldo López Dropped

El Universal reported on Thursday that a Venezuelan court had dropped charges of terrorism and murder against Leopoldo López, a leader with the opposition Popular Will party and organizer of recent demonstrations which have been met with violent suppression in many Venezuelan cities. CNN reports that López now stands accused of the lesser charges: arson and conspiracy. If convicted he could spend as many as 10 years in prison. López’s lawyer, Juan Carlos Gutiérrez, told the network that the hearing on Wednesday to decide the charges which would be formally declared against him had taken place in a bus outside the Caracas military prison where he is being held.

Officials had sought to move the hearing from the courtroom to the prison itself, sparking protest from Gutiérrez, who argued that the military prison was an improper place to hold the proceeding. The bus outside the prison was a compromise between the two options. Authorities had earlier told Gutiérrez that the military facility was the only place López could be safely held after about 100 supporters arrived at the courtroom, demanding López's release. The opposition figure and former mayor of the Chacao district in Caracas has ascended into the international consciousness for his leading role in organizing Feb. 12 protests which ended with the shooting deaths of three unarmed demonstrators who were calling for Nicolás Maduro to resign from power.

El Universal also reported that in a statement issued on Tuesday, the human-rights organization Human Rights Watch called on the Venezuelan government to release López. José Miguel Vivanco, the director of the group’s Americas division, said the government had provided merely “insults and conspiracy theories” and no evidence for the charges on which the opposition leader was to be brought up. He added that the likely cause was López’s political activities, and lamented what he described as a lack of independence among the judiciary system which would try him.