Venezuela requests judge's conditional release

Venezuela's attorney general has requested the supervised release of a judge who has become a human rights cause celebre since her arrest in 2009 on corruption charges hailed by the late Hugo Chavez.
The move comes a day after Venezuela's foreign minister announced talks in Washington in the coming days on improving strained relations, and released an American filmmaker who had been detained as a spy.
The Attorney General's office said it had requested the conditional release of Maria Afiuni, who has been under house arrest since 2011, "so that she can attend to her health problems."
Under the terms requested, Afiuni would have to report to the court every 15 days and would be barred from leaving the country or speaking to the press.

Judge Afiuni expressed surprise when the move was first announced by Attorney General Luisa Ortega Diaz, saying on her Twitter account, "I don't have the slightest idea what is happening."
Her lawyer Jose Amalio Graterol told AFP "it would be an important decision."

"We hope a decision is made today," he added in a telephone conversation.
The judge was arrested in 2009 after she ordered the conditional release of a jailed banker, Eligio Cedeno, infuriating Chavez, who declared she should be sentenced to up to 30 years in prison.
After spending more than a year in prison awaiting trial, she was put under house arrest in 2011 for health reasons. Her trial began in November 2012.

A United Nations group said from the outset that her detention was arbitrary and called for her immediate release, and other human rights groups also denounced it as showing disregard for the independence of the judiciary.
Chavez, a vehement critic of the United States, died of cancer in March after 14 years in power.
Nicolas Maduro, his handpicked successor, was proclaimed the winner of a snap election to replace him, although the results are being contested by the opposition's candidate, Henrique Capriles.
Since coming to power, Maduro has adopted Chavez's hardline rhetoric against the United States, ordering the expulsions of two US military attaches and complaining of right-wing plots to destabilize his government.

But in a change of tone, Foreign Minister Elias Jaua met US Secretary of State John Kerry Wednesday in Guatemala and they agreed to work to improve relations.
Late yesterday, Jaua said US and Venezuelan officials would meet in Washington in the coming days for talks that could lead to an exchange of ambassadors for the first time since 2010.