High-profile Venezuelan prisoner ends hunger strike

An imprisoned former Caracas police commissioner at the center of stalled political talks between Venezuela’s government and opposition ended a hunger strike on Sunday after demands for his release due to frail health were rejected. Ivan Simonovis, 54, was sentenced to 30 years behind bars after being convicted of participating in the assassination of four protesters during a march that triggered a brief coup against the late President Hugo Chavez in 2002. His hunger strike, launched on Tuesday, failed to legally advance the cause of his liberation and went against the will of his family. “I don’t want a dead hero, I want a living husband,” his wife Bony Pertinez told local media.