Maduro's Son: 'My Father Knew What He Was Getting Into'

Helicopters over Caracas, bombs dropped near a Venezuelan military airport, and a former bus driver-turned-president now in a New York jail: That's the starting point for a striking interview by Der Spiegel with Nicolas Maduro's only child. Nicolas Maduro Guerra, 35, also known as "Nicolasito," is under US indictment himself, but the man long seen as his father's political heir remains in Venezuela's National Assembly. He speaks for the first time to a Western outlet about the Jan. 3 US operation that seized his father, the nightly phone calls from the elder Maduro from federal custody, and the farewell audio message his dad recorded during the January bombings but never sent. "He thought he was going to die," the deposed leader's son tells reporter Marian Blasberg. "You are the first to learn of this."

Blasberg uses the conversation to probe something larger: a Venezuela now run by Maduro's former deputy, Delcy Rodriguez, suddenly opening its oil sector to US companies, passing an amnesty legislation that frees hundreds of political prisoners, and tolerating opposition vigils—moves that many in Caracas see as change imposed from Washington. Maduro's son defends his nation's revolution, admits to past "mistakes and excesses" during his father's administration, and frames today's concessions as necessary for survival, not surrender. He also talks about forgiveness. "I will forgive everyone who bears responsibility for January 3," he noted. "When that will be? I can't say, but there is neither hatred nor resentment in my heart. My father knew what he was getting into." The full interview here.