Venezuela to Let Coup Figure Go

CARACAS, Venezuela —  Venezuela will cooperate with Colombia’s decision to grant asylum to a businessman who became president for a day during a failed coup, President Hugo Chavez said Monday.

Chavez said he will grant safe passage to Pedro Carmona, adding that he expects the 60-year-old businessman to leave for Colombia “in the next hours.”

“I’m going to grant safe passage so he can leave Venezuela. We are obligated to do it,” Chavez said during a speech to indigenous leaders. “We can think what we think, but those are the norms of international law that we have to respect.”

After the coup, Chavez regained power and Carmona was arrested. Charged with rebellion and conspiracy, Carmona escaped house arrest Thursday and took refuge in the Colombian Embassy. There, he asked for political asylum.

“I hope everything goes well for him. In any case, for us ... he’s a fugitive of the law,” the president said.

Carmona might move to a third country after he gets to Colombia, his lawyer said.

Later Monday, another presumed coup leader, Rear Adm. Carlos Molina Tamayo, applied for political asylum in El Salvador. Molina made the request because he had received death threats and feared for his safety, said his lawyer, Carlos Bastidas.

El Salvador is considering Molina’s request, the country’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement. Molina took refuge Saturday in the home of El Salvador’s commercial attache, the statement said.

Molina, along with four other military officers, had been free, but he was barred from leaving the country pending trial on charges of rebellion and conspiracy.