AP Exclusive: Troops that defied Maduro have fled Venezuela

JOSHUA GOODMAN Associated Press MIAMI (AP) — For seven nerve-wracking months, they slept through the day in cramped quarters on cold floors, while spending their nights in prayer, keeping fit with dumbbells made from water jugs and peering through the diplomatic compound's curtains for fear of surveillance. But on Monday, 16 national guardsmen who shocked Venezuela and the world alike by revolting on April 30 against President Nicolás Maduro were safely out of the country, having successfully fled the Panamanian embassy in Caracas that had been their makeshift home. The Associated Press spoke exclusively to the group's leaders, who provided the first detailed account of what led them to plot with Maduro's opponents in an uprising that laid bare fraying support for the socialist lea