Former governor Alfredo Díaz, an opposition activist, was arrested in November 2024 amid a political crisis following the presidential elections, where the main opposition coalition denounced the result as fraudulent and a reelection for President Nicolás Maduro. Díaz questioned the lack of publication of the detailed election results and, days before his arrest, denounced the electricity crisis in Nueva Esparta, which the government attributed to opposition attacks. Opposition leader María Corina Machado and Edmundo González Urrutia called the death of Díaz a 'crime under the regime's responsibility' and promised that 'there will be no impunity.' They emphasized that his life and integrity were the exclusive responsibility of those who arbitrarily held him at the headquarters of the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service (Sebin) in Caracas, known as 'El Helicoide.' According to Gonzalo Himiob, vice president of the human rights organization Foro Penal, Díaz's death is a 'potentially illicit death' that must be investigated objectively and impartially under the 2016 Minnesota Protocol. The opposition party Voluntad Popular stated that Díaz died from a 'massive heart attack.' Díaz's wife, Leynys Malavé, demanded an answer from the state on her Instagram account: 'What happened to my husband, did they kill him?'
