The US government has condemned the Maduro regime over the fatality of a detained opposition figure, labeling it a "reminder of the vile nature" of President Nicolás Maduro's rule.
Alfredo Díaz passed away in his cell at the El Helicoide facility in Caracas, where he had been detained for over a year, as reported by rights groups and opposition groups.
The officials in Venezuela stated that the man in his fifties showed symptoms of a cardiac arrest and was transferred to a hospital, where he succumbed on Saturday.
This latest criticism from the US is part of an escalating exchange of rhetoric between the Trump administration and President Maduro, who has alleged America of pursuing regime change.
In the last several months, the US has boosted its troop levels in the region and has conducted a series of lethal attacks on boats it says have been used for moving narcotics.
US President Donald Trump has accused Maduro personally of being the head of one of the country's cartels—an allegation the Venezuelan president strongly rejects—and has threatened military action "by land".
"The detainee had been 'unjustly imprisoned' in a 'facility for mistreatment'," stated the US State Department's Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs.
Díaz was taken into custody in that year after participating with numerous political opponents to dispute the conclusion of that year's election for president.
Venezuela's government-controlled electoral authority proclaimed Maduro the winner, despite opposition tallies suggesting their contender had won by a wide margin.
The vote were largely criticized on the international stage as flawed and unfair, and ignited protests across the country.
Díaz, who governed the coastal region, was accused of "stoking division" and "terrorist acts" for questioning Maduro's claim to victory.
Local advocacy group Foro Penal has expressed alarm over deteriorating circumstances for political prisoners in the South American state.
"Another detained dissident has passed away in Venezuelan prisons. He had been held for a twelve months, in solitary confinement," wrote Alfredo Romero, the body's president, on a social network.
He said that he had only been permitted one visit from his family during the entire length of his imprisonment. He also mentioned that over a dozen political prisoners have died in the country since that year.
Dissident factions have also denounced the administration over the demise of Díaz.
María Corina Machado, a leading opposition leader who won this period's Nobel Peace Prize but who is in hiding to evade capture, stated that his demise was not a one-off event.
"Tragically, it adds to an disturbing and painful sequence of fatalities of detained dissidents imprisoned in the wake of the post-election suppression," she wrote.
The coalition of rivals said that Díaz "died unjustly".
Díaz's own faction, Democratic Action (AD), also remembered the politician, saying he had been wrongly imprisoned without due process and had stayed in conditions "that should never have violated his fundamental rights".
Tensions between the US and Venezuela have become increasingly strained over what Trump has described as efforts to curb the movement of drugs and migrants into the United States.
Maduro has for his part accused the US of using its war on drugs as an excuse to remove his socialist government and get its hands on Venezuela's huge crude oil deposits.
The US has also deployed a large fleet—its largest presence in the region in many years—along with thousands of military personnel.
In a parallel development, the Venezuelan armed forces according to reports enlisted thousands of recruits in a single event on the weekend, in response to what army commanders termed US "aggression".
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