Kidnapped Costa Rican diplomat freed in Venezuela

CARACAS, (Reuters) – A Costa Rican diplomat kidnapped last weekend and held for ransom in the latest attack on foreign envoys in Venezuela was released yesterday and is in good health despite having suffered a blow to the head, authorities said. Several abductions in the past few months have worried the diplomatic community and underlined Venezuela’s high crime rate – the top concern of voters during an election year.

Guillermo Cholele, a trade attache at the Costa Rican Embassy in Caracas, was seized by gunmen late on Sunday as he returned to his home in La Urbina, a middle-class neighbourhood in the eastern part of the capital.