Nobel laureate Machado will be 'fugitive' if she leaves Venezuela to accept peace prize

Venezuela's attorney general told AFP Thursday that Nobel laureate and opposition leader Maria Corina Machado will be considered a "fugitive" if she travels to Norway to accept the peace prize.

Machado, who says she is in hiding in Venezuela, has expressed an intention to travel to Oslo for the December 10 ceremony.

"By being outside Venezuela and having numerous criminal investigations, she is considered a fugitive," Attorney General Tarek William Saab said, adding she is accused of "acts of conspiracy, incitement of hatred, terrorism."

Saab said Machado is also under investigation for her support of the United States's deployment of military forces in the Caribbean.

US President Donald Trump has mobilized the world's largest aircraft carrier, warships and fighter jets with the stated aim of anti-drug operations, but Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro says they intend to overthrow his leftist government.

Nobel laureate Machado has welcomed the military presence -- which has seen strikes on alleged drug boats claim at least 83 lives in the Caribbean and Pacific -- and has backed Washington's claim that Maduro heads a drug cartel.

Caracas calls the boat strike deaths "extrajudicial executions."

In a video posted to social media Tuesday, Machado said Venezuela is "on the threshold of a new era."

Trump has said Maduro's days are numbered, and that he has authorized the CIA's clandestine operations in Venezuela. 

AFP