Venezuela secret service holding ex-minister: family

CARACAS - 2 September 2017: Venezuelan former defense minister Raul Isaias Baduel, a government critic whose whereabouts have been unknown for three weeks, is being held by the intelligence service, his family was quoted by France 24 as saying.

Baduel's daughter Andreina told a press conference the family were only told of his whereabouts in a phone call from new attorney general Tarek William Saab, and that she and her brother were taken to see him.

"They have him in the SEBIN at Plaza Venezuela, known as 'The Tomb'," she said, referring to the intelligence service headquarters in Caracas.

Baduel was "spiritually and physically" strong despite the conditions he was being held in, she said.

Considered by the opposition to be one of the country's most prominent political prisoners, the retired former army chief, 62, was "wearing the same clothes" as when he was last seen on August 8 during his transfer from a military prison outside Caracas, his daughter said.