The wife of jailed Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez stood outside a military hospital in Caracas late Wednesday after an unconfirmed report on social media said her husband was taken there with a medical emergency.
Lilian Tintori had tweeted earlier that she was heading to the hospital to ask about her husband, but her message had no information about Lopez’s condition or even whether he was at the hospital. She later was seen at the hospital’s gates in tears trying to obtain information about his health.
“Please, can you inform us if anyone brought Leopoldo here? Did he enter or not?” she could be heard saying through the metal bars at the entrance.
Earlier, one of Venezuela’s most-prominent journalists, Leopoldo Castillo, said on Twitter that Lopez had been taken from the Ramo Verde military jail outside Caracas to the hospital without vital signs for what the government believed was an “intoxication.”
“My account hasn’t been hacked, I’m sorry to share this information,” he said in a later tweet responding to a firestorm on social media seeking to confirm the report.
U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida, who accompanied Tintori at a White House meeting with President Donald Trump in February, said he had confirmed that the jailed activist was in “very serious condition.”
The Associated Press was unable to confirm the report in repeated messages left with people close to Lopez.
The leader of Venezuela’s ruling socialist party, Diosdado Cabello, said nothing had happened to Lopez, who he called the “Monster of Ramo Verde.” Cabello accused the opposition of trying to stage a “show.”
