Lorent Saleh

Lorent Enrique Gómez Saleh (born 22 July 1988) is a prominent Venezuelan opposition activist and president of the Operación Libertad civil-rights group.

Saleh was arrested in Columbia in September 2014, where he had been since February aiming to raise awareness about Colombian guerillas allegedly being trained by the Venezuelan government. He was deported after Colombian authorities said he had been involved in political work that violated the terms of his visa. Gabriel Valles, who was working alongside Saleh, held a press conference about Saleh's arrest the following day, and was himself detained and deported to Venezuela.

Driven across the border, the men were separately handed over to the Bolivarian Intelligence Service Bolivarian National Intelligence Service (Spanish: Servicio Bolivariano de Inteligencia Nacional, SEBIN), Venezuela's intelligence agency. Between 2014 and 2018, the men were held without trial in La Tumba, an underground prison in Caracas. A legal hearing for Saleh was postponed 52 times.

In 2017, Saleh was one of eight Venezuelans awarded the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought by the European Parliament as a representative of all Venezuelan political prisoners documented by the human rights organisation Foro Penal (Penal Forum).

On 12 October 2018, he was released by the Venezuelan authorities and immediately exiled to Spain.