By Mayela Armas, Vivian Sequera and Deisy Buitrago
CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela opposition leader Maria Corina Machado was freed on Thursday after a brief detention, her Vente Venezuela movement said on social media.
Machado was detained after an anti-government march in Caracas, her first public appearance in months, amid gunshots, the movement said, adding that during her detention she was forced to film several videos.
Earlier, her ally, former presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez, demanded she be freed immediately as government officials including Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello said her arrest was “an invention, a lie.”
Vente Venezuela had said Machado was “violently intercepted” in eastern Caracas, and that the motorcycle caravan in which she was riding had been shot at.
The opposition are protesting around the country in an eleventh-hour effort to put pressure on President Nicolas Maduro ahead of his third inauguration on Friday.