Lopez, who has taken up refuge in the Spanish embassy in Caracas after escaping from house arrest with the help of opposition forces earlier this week, said in a statement Thursday that he'd met with commanders and generals of the Venezuelan military at his house during his time in house arrest and warned that more military defections like those seen earlier this week could follow.
"The end of the usurpation" will take place "within weeks," Lopez said. He and Juan Guaido, have led a wing of the Venezuelan opposition into open rebellion against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, declaring since January 23 that Guaido is the rightful interim president. After a third failed coup attempt earlier this week, Lopez went into hiding, having been freed from his house arrest by intelligence services who defected to the side of the opposition.
Founder of the Popular Will party and former mayor of Caracas' affluent Chacao district, Lopez was arrested in 2014 and placed under house arrest in 2017 for his role in fomenting violent anti-Maduro protests colloquially known as the "Guarimba" protests after the barricades opposition forces built in the streets.
Madrid has said it won't surrender Lopez to the Maduro government, Sputnik reported.