Nobel Peace Prize laureate Machado vows to return to Venezuela, calls internal repression 'worrying'

Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado has vowed

to return to Venezuela "as soon as possible" after the US arrested 

dictator Nicolas Maduro, warning that the current government is 

stepping up its internal repression of dissidents and journalists.

Speaking to "Hannity" on Monday, Machado said that now is the 

right time for her to return after more than a year in hiding. She 

secretly fled Venezuela last month and traveled to Norway to

accept the Nobel Peace Prize, which she dedicated to President 

Donald Trump.

"Well, first of all, I plan to return to Venezuela as soon as possible," Machado said.

I've always said, Sean, every day I decide where I can be most 

effective for us. That’s why I’ve been in hiding for over 16 months,

 and that’s why I decided to go out, because I believed that right 

now I was more effective for our purpose, being able to speak

from where I am now. “But I will return to the country as soon as 

possible.”

Machado said the events of the past 24 hours were deeply 

concerning, pointing to a sweeping executive order signed by 

Maduro that he described as the same day that Maduro was

captured and driven out of the country by U.S. forces.

“What we are seeing now in the last 24 hours is truly concerning,” he said.

Machado said the order ordered the torture of Venezuelan

citizens who supported Trump’s move and claimed that

at least 14 journalists had been detained. An emergency decree 

issued on Saturday but published on Monday ordered police to 

“immediately launch a national search and arrest of all those 

involved in promoting or supporting the armed invasion of the

 United States,” according to the text of the decree, according to 

Reuters.

He said the situation should be closely monitored by the United 

States and the Venezuelan people, arguing that Maduro's

departure should continue.

Machado's comments came just two days after the Trump 

administration announced that U.S. forces had captured the

dictator and his associates. His wife, Cilia Flores,

was killed after a successful "large-scale" military assault on

the Venezuelan government. The dictator and his wife are now

in custody in New York awaiting trial on drug-terrorism charges.