Venezuelan Human Rights Group Unveils Identities of Americans Freed After Grenell Visit

Venezuelan non-governmental organization Foro Penal on Wednesday published a list of the names of the six American men who returned home last week as a result of negotiations led by President Donald Trump.

Foro Penal also unveiled the identities of the Americans who remain unjustly imprisoned by the socialist regime.

Dictator Nicolás Maduro released the six men last week, allowing them to return to America alongside Richard Grenell, President Trump’s Presidential Envoy for Special Missions. Grenell traveled to Caracas on January 31 and met with Maduro.

The negotiations led to the release of the six men and Maduro accepting U.S. deportation flights of illegal Venezuelan migrants and members of the Tren de Aragua transnational criminal organization.

At the time of their release, several American outlets had only identified one of the men as 62-year-old David Estrella. Spain’s El País newspaper identified three of the other six men as Aaron Barret Logan, Gregory David Werber, and David Guttember Guillaume.

Foro Penal, a local NGO that tracks and reports political prisoners and other individuals detained by the Maduro regime, confirmed the names of the four previously identified men in its list and identified the other two American men as Eric Auther and Samuel Batista.

Unlike the other four, Auther and Batista are not part of the two groups of Americans who the Maduro regime detained between September and October for their alleged involvement in a dubious plot to assassinate Maduro, “hack” into Venezuelan state infrastructure, and other actions.

According to the Maduro regime, which never presented evidence to substantiate any of the accusations, the CIA and Spain’s National Intelligence Centre (CNI) were both behind the purported plot. Neither the Maduro regime nor Foro Penal, nor any Venezuelan news outlet, has published further information on the circumstances behind Auther’s and Batista’s arrests.

Foro Penal further detailed that, as of Wednesday, February 5, there are still five American nationals and two lawful permanent residents who remain imprisoned in Venezuela. Three of them – U.S. Navy SEAL Wilmer José Castañeda, Jonathan Pagan González, and Jorge Marcelo Vargas – were arrested for their alleged involvement in the unproven CIA-CNI plot.

Grenell told journalist Megyn Kelly this week that he hopes to return to Caracas to rescue the remaining imprisoned Americans. Grenell pointed out that the Americans are “in essence hostages held on really lame charges” but stressed that “it will take some time” to release some of them, as they are accused of allegedly planning to assassinate Maduro.

“It’s the Venezuelan government’s position, it’s Nicolás Maduro’s position that some of these individuals were arrested because of terrorism charges or individuals that were trying to kill the president of Venezuela or the vice president,” Grenell said.

“What I said to Nicolás Maduro very clearly I said ‘look, if you’ve got evidence that individuals were trying to kill you or the vice president, those are serious issues we should absolutely prosecute those individuals, we are with you on that, we agree on that — however, we need to share information because our information doesn’t say that,’” he continued.

Grenell remarked that not only were the American hostages taken back “without paying a penny” and “without trading any hostages, which is really important,” but that he got the Maduro regime to agree to receiving U.S. deportation flights.

“They are sending the planes, and they are paying for it. I think this is the new standard,” Grenell said.

Grenell explained in the interview that four of the men said that there were initially two others who were brought into a room with them and ordered to clean up and shave. The two men allegedly refused to comply because they had been tricked by Maduro regime officials into the routine before. The four that agreed were released, and the other two were “replaced” with two other Americans. Grenell said it will be a Trump administration priority to get those two men and the others still imprisoned released.

“They didn’t have time to get everything together, so they are in their plain clothes and … not in blue,” Grenell explained. “It is heartbreaking to think that there were two individuals that could have been released, but they thought that, once again, this was just a head fake from the Venezuelan government. They refused to play the game – not knowing, not realizing that this was for real.”

According to Foro Penal, the Maduro regime maintains at least 54 foreign political prisoners as of February 5. In addition to the five remaining Americans and two lawful permanent U.S. residents, the list includes 13 Colombians, 11 Spaniards, nine Italians, and three Portuguese, among others.

Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.