56 Facts About Leopoldo López

Leopoldo Eduardo Lopez Mendoza was born on 29 April 1971 and is a Venezuelan opposition leader.

Leopoldo Lopez co-founded the political party Primero Justicia in 2000 with Henrique Capriles and Julio Borges and was elected mayor of the Chacao Municipality of Caracas in the regional elections held in July 2000.

Leopoldo Lopez is the National Coordinator of another political party, Voluntad Popular, which he founded in 2009.

Leopoldo Lopez was arrested on 18 February 2014 and charged with arson and conspiracy; murder and terrorism charges were dropped.

Opinion polls in late 2014 showed that Leopoldo Lopez had become one of the most popular politicians in Venezuela following his arrest.

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Ralenis Tovar, the judge that signed the arrest warrant against Leopoldo Lopez, declared that she signed the warrant because she felt scared after being threatened with becoming a "second Lourdes Afiuni judge".

Leopoldo Lopez was later transferred to house arrest on 8 July 2017 after being imprisoned for over three years.

Since then, Leopoldo Lopez returned home and remained under house arrest from 5 August 2017 until it was reported that Leopoldo Lopez had been released on 30 April 2019, in the wake of the 2019 Venezuelan uprising.

Lopez Mendoza was born on 29 April 1971 in Caracas, into a prominent family; his mother Antonieta Mendoza de Lopez was vice president of corporate affairs at the media conglomerate, Cisneros Group, while his father, Leopoldo Lopez Gil, held an executive editorial position at El Nacional and became a Member of the European Parliament in 2019.

Leopoldo Lopez is descended from prominent Venezuelans, including a former president.

Leopoldo Lopez's mother is the daughter of Eduardo Mendoza Goiticoa, who was Secretary of Agriculture for two years during the Romulo Betancourt years.

Bolivar's sister, Juana Bolivar, is Leopoldo Lopez's great-great-great-great-grandmother, making him one of Bolivar's few living relatives.

Leopoldo Lopez's cousin is Thor Halvorssen, president of the Human Rights Foundation.

Leopoldo Lopez studied at Colegio Los Arcos and Colegio Santiago de Leon de Caracas and graduated from boarding school in the US at the Hun School of Princeton, where he was captain of the crew and swim teams, and vice president of the student council.

In 1993, Leopoldo Lopez graduated from Kenyon College where he received degrees in Economics and Sociology.

Leopoldo Lopez attended Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government where he obtained a Master of Public Policy in 1996.

Leopoldo Lopez cofounded the political party Primero Justicia with Julio Borges in 1992.

Leopoldo Lopez later moved away from Justice First, having a more leftist-leaning political philosophy and created the Voluntad Popular party, a member of Socialist International.

Leopoldo Lopez was praised by constituents "for revamping the public health system and building new public spaces".

Under Leopoldo Lopez, work began on several major construction projects, including the Palos Grandes plaza, the new seat of the Mercado Libre, a new headquarters for the Andres Bello Education Unit, and a massive underground parking facility.

Leopoldo Lopez later tried to distance himself from that event, maintaining his actions were meant to protect Chacin from an angry mob.

Leopoldo Lopez did not sign the Carmona Decree, drawn up on the day after the 2002 Venezuelan coup attempt.

Leopoldo Lopez was affected by violent confrontations multiple times in his political career, including incidents involving gunfire targeting him.

In one attack, Leopoldo Lopez's car was fired upon and was left full of bullet holes.

In February 2006, a group of armed individuals stormed a university that Leopoldo Lopez was speaking at and created a hostage situation for about six hours.

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In June 2008, after Leopoldo Lopez returned from a visit to Washington, DC, he was allegedly detained and assaulted by the state intelligence service; the Venezuelan government disputed this account, stating that a member of the Venezuelan National Guard reported Leopoldo Lopez as being responsible for the aggression and presented a video as evidence.

The Venezuelan government's ruling found that in 1998, Lopez, while working for Petroleos de Venezuela S A and his mother, who was the company's manager of public affairs, awarded a grant to the Primero Justicia Civil Association, an organization of which Lopez was a member.

Leopoldo Lopez said the government had banned opposition candidates ahead of the November 2008 regional elections because it knew they could win.

In June 2008, Leopoldo Lopez brought his case to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in Washington, DC, challenging the claims by stating that none of those punished had been charged, prosecuted and found guilty through due process of law, in direct violation of treatises signed by the Venezuelan government and the Venezuelan constitution.

Venezuela's Supreme Court declared the ruling "unenforceable", stating that the disqualification from holding public office was a legal sanction, not a political one, and that Leopoldo Lopez was still able to register as a candidate for office and participate in elections.

Economist stated that Leopoldo Lopez was the "main apparent target" of the "decision by the auditor-general to ban hundreds of candidates from standing in the state and municipal elections for alleged corruption, even though none has been convicted by the courts".

Leopoldo Lopez again filed a complaint, this time with the Human Rights Commission of the international Mercosur Parliament, on which Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay are represented, and on which Venezuela has observer status.

On 12 February 2014, Leopoldo Lopez called on Venezuelans to peacefully protest against the Venezuelan government.

Leopoldo Lopez gave a short speech in which he said that he hoped his arrest would awaken Venezuela to the corruption and economic disaster caused by socialist rule.

Leopoldo Lopez was formally charged at an arraignment that took place inside a military bus parked outside the prison, a process described by Gutierrez as "very unorthodox".

Leopoldo Lopez was serving a 13-year sentence for crimes including instigation of delinquency, arson, damage to public property, "incitement to riot", and terrorism.

Leopoldo Lopez was denied bail and imprisoned at the Ramo Verde military prison outside of Caracas.

Leopoldo Lopez grew a beard and began learning how to play the cuatro.

In May 2015 Leopoldo Lopez announced he was beginning a hunger strike to protest his detention and the mismanagement of the Maduro government.

Leopoldo Lopez has urged other jailed opposition to join, with Daniel Ceballos participating in the hunger strike.

Leopoldo Lopez was set to be tried alongside four students, Marco Coello, Christian Holdack, Angel Gonzalez, and Demian Martin.

At the beginning of his trial, Leopoldo Lopez's defence was barred from entering the court to present evidence and witnesses.

Since Leopoldo Lopez was detained on 18 February 2014, he was held in Ramo Verde Prison while he was tried.

At the courthouse, about 200 supporters of Leopoldo Lopez gathered while government supporters grouped together with a band singing folk songs supporting a guilty verdict against Leopoldo Lopez.

Leopoldo Lopez was then allowed to spend moments with his family before he was sent back to his isolation cell in Ramo Verde.

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On 23 October 2015, Franklin Nieves, a prosecutor in Leopoldo Lopez's trial who fled to the United States, stated that the trial was a "farce" and that he was pressured by high officials in the Venezuelan government.

Ralenis Tovar, the judge that signed the arrest warrant against Leopoldo Lopez, declared that she signed the warrant because she felt scared after being threatened with becoming a "second Lourdes Afiuni judge".

The Venezuelan government replied to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights with a letter directed to him stating that it was "senseless" to release Leopoldo Lopez and claimed that Prince Zeid bin Ra'ad's statements were "undoubtedly part of the international media manipulation that has been denounced by the top leadership of the Bolivarian Government".

Leopoldo Lopez called for international attention on the state of Venezuela's economy, corruption and crime, sharing his beliefs on how to help improve Venezuela.

Leopoldo Lopez called for justice for Maduro's victims, for the disarming of paramilitary groups, for "an investigation into fraud committed through our commission for currency exchange, " and for "real engagement from the international community, particularly in Latin America".

Leopoldo Lopez charged that while international human- rights organizations had been outspoken in condemning Maduro, many of Venezuela's neighbors had responded to his actions with "shameful silence", as had the Organization of American States, which represents nations in the Western Hemisphere.

On 2 May 2019, the Supreme Tribunal issued an arrest warrant for Leopoldo Lopez, who exited the gates of the Spanish Embassy, with his wife Lilian Tintori, to speak with reporters, saying that Maduro's days were numbered.

Leopoldo Lopez's escape was first reported by the Spanish newspaper El Mundo.

In exile, Leopoldo Lopez has declared that "for a transition to be viable" support from the "Maduro regime" was needed, citing as examples South Africa, Eastern Europe and Spain, but saying that those who have committed human right abuses or crimes against humanity should not be included.

On 22 May 2021, having travelled to Ecuador, Leopoldo Lopez met with the mayor of Guayaquil, Cynthia Viteri, to discuss about the regularization of the Venezuelan diaspora and to recognize both expired Venezuelan passports and other documents.

Leopoldo Lopez criticized Castillo for openly declaring that Venezuela was a full democracy and said that he opined about the Peruvian elections because there were a million Venezuelans living in the country, and that their results would affect the region, including Venezuela.