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Sacking turns former Zelenskyy loyalist into potent political opponent

For more than a month, demonstrators have gathered in Ivan Franko Square outside Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office. The protesters have been chanting a name – not that of Ukraine’s embattled president but that of the man he recently sacked as defence minister, Mykhailo Fedorov. On Sunday evening, 2,000 people marched along Khreshchatyk, Kyiv’s main boulevard, waving cardboard banners in support of their ousted hero. Zelenskyy has refused to reinstate Fedorov, who during his six months in the job was widely seen as an effective and reforming figure. On Wednesday, Ukraine’s parliament, the Rada, voted to approve a successor as defence minister, Yevhen Khmara. The move shows that Fedorov has been shut out from government permanently, and confirms his transition from trusted insider and Zelenskyy loyalist to a potent political opponent. On Tuesday, Fedorov released on YouTube a bombshell nine-minute video. In it, the 35-year-old called for wartime elections and reminded Zelenskyy, his former boss, that power ultimately resided with the people. “Democracy cannot be held hostage by Russia,” Fedorov said. “We must find a legal, safe and ‌realistic mechanism which will allow Ukraine to renew its full democratic process even in the conditions of a long war.” Fedorov offered a blistering critique of Zelenskyy’s administration. The country was facing a “systemic crisis of governance”, he said, in which corruption inside the defence ministry was hurting the war effort. Reforms were stymied, loyalists promoted. “The old system lives by its own rules too often. ⁠It protects itself. It is scared of change,” he said, hinting that his own attempts to root out corruption in procurement had led to his sacking. Most civil society activists agree with this big-picture analysis. Corruption has always existed in Ukraine, in common with other countries that were once a part of the Soviet Union, including and especially Russia. During the 2010-14 presidency of Viktor Yanukovych, who was backed by the Kremlin, it reached spectacular levels. In the peaceful past, large-scale theft from the state budget left less money for schools and hospitals. As Fedorov noted, today’s schemes have “an entirely different meaning” as full-scale war rages. They represent drones not bought, “ammunition that did not reach the front” and technology that “could have been put into production but wasn’t”. The video shows a photo of Andriy Yermak, Zelenskyy’s former chief of staff, who resigned last year amid a corruption scandal implicating other senior figures such as Timur Mindich, Zelenskyy’s former business partner. Yermak’s lawyer has dismissed the allegations as “baseless” and Mindich, who fled to Israel, also denies wrongdoing. Orysia Lutsevych, the deputy director of the Russia and Eurasia programme and head of the Ukraine forum at Chatham House, said of Fedorov’s comments: “I think he’s right. He says the system is old-fashioned, does not run fast enough, stalls innovation and prioritises loyalty.” She said “personal and vested interests” sometimes influenced official decision making, not always in Ukraine’s interests. “This could be called corruption,” she added. At the same time, Ukrainian society – led by students, veterans, journalists and anti-corruption bodies – is politically engaged. “The street is a check on the president. It corrects,” Lutsevych said. “Parliamentarians are active too. Ukraine is a pluralistic space. There are checks and balances even under martial law.” However, she said “nervous exhaustion” and Zelenskyy’s failure to explain his actions had created a public crisis. “It’s a perfect powder box,” she observed. Zelenskyy has not yet responded to Fedorov’s accusations. On Wednesday he fired his deputy chief of staff, Iryna Mudra, after the National Anti-Corruption Bureau carried out a raid on her office. The bureau said Mudra and a Rada deputy were suspected of money laundering to the tune of $3.4m. A year ago, Zelenskyy triggered protests when he tried to strip the bureau of its independence. He reversed course after criticism from activists at home and pressure from Kyiv’s European partners. Olena Tregub, a co-founder of the Independent Defence Anti-Corruption Commission, said those “from the system” frequently occupied top posts, at the expense of talented professionals. “Corruption is the symptom. It’s not the cause. The cause of the problem is bad governance,” she said. There were “shades of grey” when it came to military contracts. Outside bodies that monitored procurement were often able to stop dubious purchases, she pointed out. There is little prospect Zelenskyy will hold an election any time soon, or embrace Fedorov’s idea of voting by smartphone. Under Ukraine’s constitution, polls cannot take place during wartime. Nonetheless, pressure for some form of democratic renewal is growing. It could include consultations with government critics and a restless civil society. And when presidential elections are eventually held, Fedorov has nimbly positioned himself to challenge Zelenskyy.

Zelenskyy sacks deputy head of his office amid reported corruption investigation – as it happened

And, on that note, we will be closing the blog for today. President ⁠Volodymyr Zelenskyy dismissed deputy ⁠head ⁠of the presidential office Iryna ⁠Mudra on Wednesday, according to ⁠the decree published ‌on ‌the presidential website (12:32). The move comes hours after Ukraine’s anti-corruption agencies aid they had uncovered a group suspected of money laundering, which they said included a senior presidential official – although they did not give any names (10:06, 11:25). Separately, Zelenskyy’s preferred candidates for foreign and defence ministries were approved by the Ukrainian parliament (12:37), despite some controversy around the appointments amid public comments from the popular previous defence minister, Mykhailo Fedorov (12:37). A Ukrainian man who has been arrested in Croatia as part of an investigation into the 2022 bombing of the Nord Stream gas pipelines between Germany and Russia (12:16, 16:24). If you have any tips, comments or suggestions, email me at jakub.krupa@theguardian.com. I am also on Bluesky at @jakubkrupa.bsky.social and on X at @jakubkrupa.

Spain to allow 500 children in Ceuta to go to mainland in immigration U-turn

The Spanish government has U-turned and said it will allow 500 migrant children in Ceuta to relocate to the mainland. The majority of the estimated 70,000 people who crossed into Ceuta – a Spanish territory on the coast of north Africa – on 30 July have returned to Morocco. However, under Spanish law, the state has a duty of care to young, unaccompanied migrants until they reach the age of 18. On 13 August, the interior minister, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, had said: “Anyone who illegally enters Ceuta or Melilla [another Spanish enclave in north Africa] knows they will be sent back because Spain and Morocco work together to this end. They will not reach the peninsula, nor the European continent and nor will they remain indefinitely in Ceuta or Melilla.” The transfer of the children to the Spanish mainland is a sensitive political topic as several regions governed jointly by the conservative People’s party and the far-right Vox are reluctant or opposed to receiving their quota. To minimise conflict, the youth ministry, in coordination with the Ceuta government, is devising an urgent plan under which NGOs and child protection agencies take charge of the most vulnerable children, girls in particular, without transferring their guardianship to Spain’s regional governments. Rubén Pérez Correa, the secretary of state for children, has been in Ceuta since Sunday in an effort to resolve a situation in which hundreds of children are living on the street and existing on handouts from Ceuta residents. News of the government’s plan came only hours after the European Commission said that under EU law all of the migrants should be returned to Morocco. Asked to clarify, the commission’s spokesperson on internal affairs, Markus Lammert, said that by law all irregular migrants remaining in Ceuta should be sent back, “including unaccompanied minors”. The People’s party has rejected the government plan, saying the best place for the children is with their families. “If Morocco has asked for the children to be returned and if Europe says the illegal immigrants should all be returned, whether children or not, what more does the government need?” the People’s party deputy finance spokesperson, Juan Bravo, said in a television interview. The mixed messages partly derive from the fact the latest European pact on immigration has not yet been incorporated into Spanish law and therefore Spain’s own legislation on the treatment of unaccompanied minors remains in force. According to Spain’s ministry of inclusion and migration, as of last March 21,104 people aged 16-23 were guardians of the state, of whom about 3,500 were under 17. Approximately 50% were from Morocco. Girls made up about 8% of the total.

Germany’s firewall was meant to hold the far right at bay. It may have done the reverse

In just over two weeks’ time, Saxony-Anhalt – home to historic timber-framed houses, the dramatic Harz mountains and the birthplace of Martin Luther – will hold what could prove one of the most significant state elections in Germany’s postwar history. The vote, on 6 September, could see a far-right party whose local branch is officially classified by the country’s domestic intelligence service as “confirmed rightwing extremist” appoint a state premier and govern a state alone, for the first time. That could have big consequences for both Germany and Europe. With more state elections a fortnight later in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Berlin, it could also end the consensus that, since the second world war, has kept the far right at bay in Germany. The far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) has led most German national polls since April last year. It is comfortably ahead in eastern Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, and is even second in famously liberal Berlin. In Saxony-Anhalt, the party – which dabbles in Nazi imagery, differentiates between “biological” and “passport” Germans, and whose rhetoric and policies are often way more extreme than many other EU far-right parties – is polling at up to 42%. Under Germany’s proportional representation threshold, which excludes parties that capture less than 5% of the vote, a score in the low-to-mid 40s could quite conceivably secure AfD an absolute majority in the Saxony-Anhalt parliament. As the Centre for Strategic and International Studies points out, that would have an immediate domestic impact. Germany’s 16 states exercise constitutional authority over education, policing, public broadcasting and regional civil administration. AfD’s proposed state-level measures include revising the school history curriculum to emphasise Germany’s “achievements” over its wartime crimes, defunding anti-racism initiatives, removing pride flags and rewriting the mandates of public TV and radio. An AfD government could exploit state-level public recruitment criteria and make political appointments favouring ideologically aligned candidates, and, more broadly, create an intimidating environment where state employees prefer silence to conflict. At the federal level, winning a state government would also give the AfD seats in the Bundesrat upper house representing the states. That would not allow it to block legislation unilaterally, but it could table new policy initiatives and disrupt consensus. On the EU stage, while the party is somewhat sidelined within parliament – it heads the uber-nationalist ESN group, including France’s Reconquest and Italy’s National Future – its increased influence in Germany would weaken European unity. An increasingly fragmented German political landscape would undermine Berlin’s role as an engine of European integration, affecting decision-making in key areas such as environment policy (AfD rejects the need for climate action). In other vital areas – such as policy towards Ukraine – a more influential AfD’s hostility to further military aid for Kyiv and eagerness to normalise relations with Moscow would directly benefit Russia’s efforts to sap western unity. More broadly, an AfD victory would be a potent signal that even the EU’s biggest economy is vulnerable to the far right, boosting nativist parties in countries with crunch national elections in the next 18 months, such as France, Italy, Spain and Poland. But there’s another dimension to a possible AfD victory in Saxony-Anhalt that deserves a closer look. For decades, Germany’s political parties have operated a so-called “Brandmauer”, or firewall, to prevent the normalisation of far-right extremism. *** A Brandmauer backfire In essence, the firewall should rule out any form of coalition or structural cooperation with the AfD. In 2018, the centre-right CDU of Chancellor Friedrich Merz even codified the Brandmauer into a formal “incompatibility resolution”. The objective, of course, was to prevent support for the AfD increasing, its influence expanding, and, ultimately, the far-right party winning power. It hasn’t worked – and analysts now suggest there may be three distinct flaws with the firewall strategy. First, as The Economist argued, by making the AfD a political pariah, the Brandmauer has in effect insulated the party from the compromises and failures of government. With no need to deliver actual results, it can promise voters whatever it likes (and it does). That, of course, has made it even more appealing. Unlike many other European far-right parties that have experienced the accountability that accompanies regional or national power, the AfD has not been obliged to moderate its language or its ideas. Second, as the German academic Alexander Görlach observed, the firewall has “hollowed-out” the centre: to build majorities excluding the far right, the CDU has had to enter “Grand Coalitions” with its historic adversary, the centre-left SPD. Over time, this constant reliance on uncomfortable alliances and ideological compromise has blurred the distinctions between the mainstream parties, reinforcing the AfD’s line that the establishment forces are carbon-copy “cartel parties”. With the far-right party dominating polling in eastern Germany, the CDU’s rigid observance of the firewall has led it into unnatural, unstable and thus largely ineffective alliances, further frustrating voters and driving support for extremes. In 2018, four years before he became CDU leader, Merz promised to halve the AfD’s score. Since then, it has almost doubled. As elsewhere in Europe, shifting rightward, notably on immigration, has served only to validate the far right’s agenda. It could be, of course, that the AfD does not win an absolute majority on 6 September. But even if it does not, the CDU may be forced to ally with pretty much every other party in parliament, including the radical-left Die Linke, to keep it out. That, analysts suggest, may prove a bridge too far for some senior party figures, and could have dire, even fatal consequences for Merz’s leadership – at around 13%, his approval ratings are already among the lowest of any postwar chancellor. But the fate of Germany’s Brandmauer is worth pondering. That’s not to say it isn’t a good idea to try to isolate the far right. But if you don’t have the policies to actually beat it at the ballot box, the net result may be that the cycle of ideological compromises you are forced into merely alienates voters further – and drives them into the arms of the very far right you sought to contain. To receive the complete version of This Is Europe in your inbox every Wednesday, please subscribe here.

Adviser to far-right Latin American leaders arrested for allegedly plotting to kill girlfriend

A senior adviser to many of Latin America’s new wave of far-right leaders has been arrested for allegedly masterminding the attempted murder of his girlfriend. The businessman and political consultant Fernando Cerimedo, 42, had been working as an adviser to the Bolivian president, Rodrigo Paz Pereira, and was one of the main strategists behind Javier Milei’s campaign in Argentina’s 2023 presidential election. He has previously been described as Maga’s man in Latin America – a reference to Donald Trump’s Make America Great Again movement – and is credited with helping secure the US president’s endorsement of the rightwing Nasry “Tito” Asfura, who won Honduras’s presidential election in December. On Tuesday morning, Cerimedo landed in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, in Bolivia, and was arrested before boarding another flight reportedly bound for Buenos Aires, Argentina. According to police, he was detained on suspicion of ordering a gun attack on Nadia Beller, a Bolivian lawyer who local media reported had been in a relationship with Cerimedo – who is married – since last year. Surveillance footage showed two men dressed as delivery riders and wearing helmets open fire on Beller on Monday night outside a hotel in Santa Cruz de la Sierra. She survived and was taken to hospital. Beller told police she had been lured to the hotel after receiving anonymous messages promising to hand over evidence of alleged crimes committed by Bolivia’s leftwing former president Evo Morales, who is subject to two outstanding arrest warrants and remains sheltered in a coca-growing region. Beller said she believed the attack had been a trap orchestrated by Cerimedo. The local police commander, Col David Gómez, told local media that investigators were working on the hypothesis that Beller and Cerimedo had been in a romantic relationship and had had “a personal dispute” in the days before the attack. Cerimedo’s lawyer, Ernesto Giraldes, said his client had not been not trying to flee to Argentina and had travelled to Santa Cruz de la Sierra specifically to visit Beller in hospital, and denied he was behind the attack. A presidential spokesperson, José Luis Gálvez, said Cerimedo had acted as Paz Pereira’s “personal consultant” but did not hold a government post. The Bolivian president expressed “solidarity” with Beller and posted on X that his administration would offer “zero interference” in the investigation. Cerimedo had a prominent role in Milei’s campaign strategy and had boasted that he had been the one to suggest the self-styled libertarian take a chainsaw to campaign rallies, but he has never held a post in the Argentinian government. In Brazil, Cerimedo was indicted by federal police over his alleged involvement in the attempted coup led by the far-right former president Jair Bolsonaro. In 2022, five days after Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva won the election and Bolsonaro refused to concede and plotted ways to remain in power, Cerimedo held a live stream titled “Brazil Was Stolen”, in which he presented an anonymous dossier containing false claims about the vote. Brazil’s federal police later concluded it had been a premeditated operation coordinated with Brazilian military officers and Bolsonaro aides, who had provided Cerimedo with the report. Prosecutors, however, declined to bring charges against him, saying investigators had failed to produce evidence to show Cerimedo knew the report contained fabricated information.

France’s ‘aid in dying’ law comes into effect after constitutional approval

Legislation granting incurably ill adults the right to assisted dying has been formally adopted in France after the text was approved by the country’s highest constitutional authority and published in the official journal. The law, known as a law on “end of life” or “aid in dying” rather than “assisted dying” or “euthanasia”, means France joins the small group of countries including the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland and Canada to have legalised the practice. Published on Wednesday after years of debate, it establishes a right to assisted dying for patients of legal age who are French nationals or long-term residents and suffering from conditions that are assessed as incurable and are causing unbearable pain. A doctor must verify the patient’s eligibility before a panel assesses whether the criteria have been met. Once approval has been granted, patients must wait at least two days before the procedure can take place and confirm their decision on the day. The patient may withdraw consent at any time and must administer the lethal substance themselves unless they are physically unable to do so, in which case a healthcare worker can help. Until now France has allowed passive euthanasia – such as withholding artificial life support – and deep sedation before death, but people seeking active end-of-life options have been forced to travel to other countries where assisted dying is legal. Emmanuel Macron, who promised a right-to-die law in his 2022 re-election campaign, welcomed the news, which he said “concludes an exemplary democratic debate”, while the text’s author, a centrist MP, called it “a major step forward”. Macron’s office added that the law provided “an essential guarantee for our fellow citizens” and could now be implemented “in the certainty that it rests on fully established democratic, ethical and constitutional foundations”. However, the Jérôme Lejeune Foundation, which provides lifetime care to people with genetic intellectual disabilities such as Down’s syndrome, expressed “outrage” and other campaigners said the law posed “an absolute danger to the most vulnerable”. All parliamentarians were given a free vote to express their personal convictions during the debate. Euthanasia is a controversial subject in France, which has a longstanding Catholic tradition, while the bill was also opposed by some health workers. The publication in the official journal follows several legal challenges, with critics arguing that the minimum two-day reflection period was too short and that entire healthcare institutions should be able to refuse on grounds of conscience. France’s constitutional council upheld the law in its entirety last Friday but ruled that certain provisions needed clarification, including the “conscience clause”, which will allow healthcare professionals to refuse to take part in the procedure. The council refused to strike down any part of the law, but ruled that doctors must take into account patients’ legal guardians when assessing requests, and that pharmacists as well as doctors and nurses could exercise the “conscience clause”. That clause must also apply to private, typically faith-based healthcare facilities where assisted dying is “manifestly contrary” to their mission, it said, providing they were not the only establishments able to meet “local needs”.

Is Bulgarian prime minister Rumen Radev sizing up the EU’s Orbán-shaped hole?

One evening nine years ago in the Bulgarian town of Balgari, a Brazilian tourist approached the casually dressed, middle-aged man surrounded by bodyguards, bystanders and photographers. “Why are you important?” she asked. “I’m not so important,” he replied. She repeated the question and he admitted: “I’m the president.” Now, in 2026, the rightwing populist Rumen Radev is no longer the president, but the prime minister – the more powerful of the two positions – after his Progressive Bulgaria party secured an overwhelming majority in April’s election. While many in Europe breathed a sigh of relief that month at the demise of Viktor Orbán in Hungary, others wondered if Radev would become the EU’s next disruptor-in-chief. His first months, analysts suggested, have pointed towards a more transactional foreign policy with the US and Europe, and some initial moves that could be seen to benefit Russia. In May, Bulgaria halted its military support to Kyiv, with Radev saying he believed the Ukrainian cause was “doomed”. When 36 countries signed up to a special tribunal to prosecute Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, Bulgaria did not. Visiting Paris on Bastille Day, Radev pulled Bulgaria out of the “coalition of the willing”, saying his country does not have the capacity to help Ukraine, and that military support will only prolong the war. Days later, Bulgaria agreed to host up to eight US aerial refuelling tankers at the Bezmer military base to support US operations in the Middle East. “He’s already an awkward leader for Europe because his moves are surprising Europeans by the fact that Bulgaria, for many years, despite its internal challenges, held its pro-European course,” said Maria Simeonova, the head of the Sofia office at the European Council on Foreign Relations. She said Radev, while maintaining Bulgaria’s commitment to the EU and Nato, was distancing the country from the emerging European security architecture yet hoping to continue benefiting from US security guarantees. “There’s clearly a lack of any ideological consistency in the way he conducts foreign policy in those first months,” she said. “And this is becoming very visible now.” Meanwhile, the prime minister, who had never previously expressed any strong views about his faith, religion or the church, has now found an affinity with Orthodox Christianity. In June, Progressive Bulgaria supported the March of the Family, a Christian and patriotic event supporting traditional family values defined as being in direct opposition to Sofia Pride, which happened on the same day. Radev also threatened to veto the EU’s 21st package of sanctions against Russia over its war against Ukraine, which included measures against the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill. “I am not interested in the Russian patriarch as an individual,” Radev told reporters. “I am interested in the fact that he is the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, which is Eastern Orthodox, just like our church. I am concerned about the millions of people who belong to that church.” A source close to the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, speaking on condition of anonymity to preserve its relationship with the patriarch, said Radev’s recent rapprochement with the church was purely political. “He doesn’t have anything to do with the church and religion. It is 100% political,” they said. “I think it was just a gesture towards Moscow. It has no practical benefit for Bulgaria, nor for Radev.” Dimitar Keranov, a visiting fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the US, said Radev was “sitting on two chairs” with pro-European and pro-Russian statements in an attempt to appease his diverse electorate. However, he said, this tactic would not prevail. “There’s this idiom in Bulgarian: He who sits on two chairs falls,” said Keranov. “My opinion is that if he continues this, sooner or later it will turn against him.” Vladislav Bonev, 19, an IT student at Sofia University, said he was disappointed with the government and that the pro-Russia rhetoric was not showing Bulgaria in a good light to other European leaders. Yet, he said, he was not too concerned about the possibility of Radev pulling Bulgaria out of the EU and Nato. “I don’t think we have anything to worry about because he doesn’t have that much power to pull us out of the EU,” he said. “But what would be good is to have him kept in check by the EU.” It is too early to determine whether Radev is emerging as the new Orbán. Simeonova said she believed Radev, who does not see the EU as a solidarity club, would not be as disruptive or block crucial EU decisions. But some of his actions may have dire consequences for the country and prevent its development. “The difference with Orbán, is that Orbán’s actions had consequences for the EU and Hungary, whereas Radev’s actions will only have consequences for Bulgaria, marginalising the country, isolating the businesses from any opportunities,” she said. Keranov said Radev lacked the infrastructure to be as disruptive as Orbán. He said he believed, however, that Radev could yet become a more awkward leader for Europe. “If he is given enough time, like Orbán was given as prime minister, we could expect him consolidating his power more and more, blocking some reforms that are not really in his interest, or even turning this pro-Russian rhetoric into even more pro-Russian policy in practice,” he said. “We need to be aware that, right now, he’s also just testing the ground.” Nevertheless, some believe Radev will face some serious problems in the autumn once Bulgarians are back from their holidays. A newly approved budget, freezing the minimum monthly wage at €620.20, projecting a 5.7% GDP deficit, and authorising up to €10.1bn in new government borrowing, has considerably rattled part of the electorate. Last December, the proposed state budget for 2026 provoked mass protests, resulting in the resignation of the then prime minister, Rosen Zhelyazkov, and his cabinet. Tsvetelina Mareva, 27, who runs a children’s centre in Sofia, said she was disappointed about Radev’s pro-Russia stance and wished he was focusing on his campaign promises. “We can see now that he lied to us,” she said. “So probably we’ll go to protest after the summer. We are already talking about that on social media. In September I am sure there will be a lot of protests.”

Activist forced out of US after criticising Trump-aligned Colombian politician

In the week before Colombia’s presidential election, Beto Coral, a well-known activist living in the United States, travelled to Florida to persuade fellow Colombians not to vote for the far-right candidate Abelardo de la Espriella. Coral held banners outside polling stations in Miami warning that the millionaire lawyer, whose candidacy was endorsed by Donald Trump, would “help deport all of you”. The following morning the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, issued a memo to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) alleging that the activist had used his presence in the country “to conduct political activity” against a Colombian presidential candidate, and that DHS could take steps to “facilitate his departure”. Hours later, Coral was arrested. He said that, over the following 30 days in DHS detention, he was assaulted, deprived of food and water, and held in solitary confinement before securing his voluntary departure back to Colombia in mid-July, after more than 10 years living in the US. Although other immigrants have previously been detained in the US over their political activism – most notably the Palestinian student Mahmoud Khalil for protesting against the war in Gaza – Coral’s case is being seen as the first involving remarks about a foreign election. “They detained me simply because I protested against a Trump-backed candidate,” said the 40-year-old activist, whose full name is Franklin Humberto Coral Garrido. Coral, who has no criminal record, alleges that his detention resulted from a request by De la Espriella, who went on to win the election and was sworn in earlier this month to replace the leftwing president Gustavo Petro, with whom Trump had repeatedly clashed. In early June the US deputy secretary of state, Christopher Landau, wrote on social media about Colombia’s election that those “tempted to undermine or manipulate the democratic process” were putting their visas at risk. “That’s why they call me El Quitavisas (the visa taker)”, he added. De la Espriella replied: “I have the list, dear deputy secretary.” On the morning of 16 June, the same day Rubio issued the memo, De la Espriella posted: “There will be good news for Colombia and for patriotic Colombians abroad,” alongside an AI-generated image of “El Quitavisas” projected into the sky. That afternoon, Coral was arrested. “De la Espriella knew that I was going to be arrested and announced it on X,” said Coral. The US state department and De la Espriella did not respond to requests for comment. Colombia’s new president already knew the activist from his years as a lawyer. De la Espriella represented the former president Álvaro Uribe Vélez in a defamation lawsuit filed in Florida against Coral after the activist accused him of leading paramilitary groups. Coral lost the case and was ordered to issue a public apology. Last May, Coral filed a complaint with the FBI alleging that De la Espriella had secretly recorded a telephone conversation between them and attempted to blackmail him with it. In his memo, Rubio cited the activist’s alleged “use of US courts to target a Colombian presidential candidate” as one of the political activities he claimed Coral had carried out “on behalf of the Petro government”. Coral entered the US on a tourist visa in December 2015 and applied for political asylum in March 2016, saying he had received death threats in Colombia after investigating the death of his father, Humberto Coral Caballero. A police captain who took part in the US-backed operation that brought down the notorious drug lord Pablo Escobar in 1993, Caballero was murdered months later. “I had been waiting for a decision on my asylum application since 2016, but I always had legal status and a work permit,” said Coral, who, besides his work as an activist and YouTuber, held “the kinds of jobs immigrants usually have in the US: I drove for Uber, worked in construction, was a cook, a waiter, a baker”. On the day of his arrest, he was returning from the supermarket with his 12-year-old son. He was later transferred six times between detention facilities across four states. “Those journeys were extremely long, and the agents wouldn’t give me water or food,” said Coral, who estimates that he spent “24 of the 30 days” in solitary confinement. “ICE officers shoved me, threw me against the wall and kicked me in the legs,” he added. A DHS spokesperson did not respond to questions about the mistreatment Coral said he suffered, instead sending a statement describing him as “an illegal alien” who “in violation of our nation’s laws, overstayed his visa for 10 years”. Nine Democratic members of Congress sent Rubio a letter on 23 June demanding Coral’s immediate release, arguing that the US government had violated his human rights, including his right to free speech. He was released only after his lawyer, Elizabeth Shaw, secured an agreement allowing him to leave the country voluntarily. In her filing, Shaw argued that Coral had been detained despite facing no immigration charges. She sought his release before De la Espriella’s inauguration, arguing that the incoming government posed “an open, real, and substantial threat” to his life. After briefly returning to Colombia – where he warned Petro that “he could be the next” to be arrested by the US – Coral has since left the country. He said he does not know where he will live next, but even though in theory he could still try to return to the US, as he was not deported, it will not be there – because it is “the worst place in the world for any immigrant”. “I find it paradoxical that Rubio is a Latino, the son of immigrants who came from Cuba in search of a better future for him, and now he persecutes, mistreats, detains and deports an immigrant who entered the country legally,” he said.