Venezuela’s Maduro demands El Salvador’s Bukele release ‘kidnapped’ deportees after prisoner swap offer

By Michael Rios and José Álvarez, CNN

(CNN) — Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has demanded El Salvador release hundreds of Venezuelans who were deported from the United States, who he described as being “kidnapped,” after his Salvadoran counterpart earlier proposed a prisoner swap.

Speaking on a television broadcast on Monday, Maduro demanded that Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele “provide proof of life for all the kidnapped young people,” allow their families and lawyers to visit the mega-prison where they’re being kept, and to release them “unconditionally.”

He also urged Bukele to release Kilmar Abrego Garcia – the Maryland man who was mistakenly deported from the US and remains in El Salvador.

His comments come after Bukele proposed a prisoner exchange. In a post on X, the Salvadoran president offered to repatriate the 252 Venezuelans currently detained in El Salvador in exchange for “an identical number (252) of the thousands of political prisoners” he says Venezuela holds, including family members of opposition leaders.

“Unlike our detainees, many of whom have committed murder, others have committed rape, and some have even been arrested multiple times before being deported, your political prisoners have committed no crime,” Bukele said in the post, directed at Maduro. “The only reason they are imprisoned is because they opposed you and your electoral fraud.”

Among those “political prisoners” are Rafael Tudares, the son-in-law of an exiled opposition presidential candidate; Corina Parisca de Machado, the mother of a Venezuelan opposition leader; a host of journalists, lawyers, and activists; and nearly 50 detained citizens from other countries, including the US.

Bukele also proposed swapping four political leaders seeking asylum in the Argentine Embassy in Venezuela. The group has been sheltering at the facility for more than a year, accused of terrorist activities and treason for working with Machado, who says they did nothing wrong.

The US and El Salvador say most of the deportees locked up in El Salvador’s Cecot prison are members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua and some are members of the MS-13 Salvadoran gang. But officials have provided scant evidence to show the inmates have ties to those criminal groups, and some of their relatives told CNN that the deportees were not involved in any criminal activity.

Similarly, the saga of Abrego Garcia has become a critical legal battle in the US. Though the Trump administration admitted he was erroneously deported, it also insists he is a terrorist and member of MS-13 – without offering definitive evidence to prove these claims.

Abrego Garcia was able to meet with Maryland Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen last week during the senator’s visit to El Salvador, after he was initially denied access to Cecot.

Maduro, too, denies that the Venezuelan migrants are criminals and has previously described their incarceration in El Salvador as a “kidnapping”.

Their detention in El Salvador has caused growing outrage in Venezuela. Earlier Monday, Venezuela’s General Attorney Tarek William Saab also responded to Bukele’s offer by asking for the names and medical status of all of the Venezuelans in Cecot, and accused El Salvador’s government of breaching the human rights of its nationals held in the maximum security facility.

Bukele’s proposal comes amid heightened scrutiny about the Salvadoran’s willingness to accept hundreds of migrants who the Trump administration claims are gang members or violent criminals.

One of the region’s most popular leaders, Bukele has called himself “the world’s coolest dictator” and the “philosopher king” as he suspends certain civil liberties to go after his country’s gangs.

That has earned him the ire of international human rights organizations, which allege large-scale abuses in his crackdown on crime. But it has also earned him popularity inside El Salvador; Bukele, 43, won reelection last year by a landslide.

This article has been updated.

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