When several Americans held in Venezuela’s notoriously harsh prison system were released on Tuesday, among them was a traveler whose relatives had lost track of him in early December, leaving them agonizing over whether he was alive.
The man, James Luckey-Lange, is a 28-year-old New Yorker and the son of the late musician Diane Luckey, who was known as Q Lazzarus and sang the soaring 1988 hit single “Goodbye Horses.” His release was confirmed by his aunt.
Mr. Luckey-Lange had been on an extended trip through South America after the death of his parents, his aunt Abbie Luckey said, when he crossed into Venezuela and was detained. It was unclear if Mr. Luckey-Lange had a visa to enter Venezuela, as the country’s law requires of Americans.
Ms. Luckey, Mr. Luckey-Lange’s next of kin, said in a phone interview on Wednesday that she could finally relax, knowing her nephew was free and in good health.
“It’s a great release,” she said.
The release of Mr. Luckey-Lange and several other U.S. citizens represented a major step in the liberalization of Venezuela’s interim government. They were the first known Americans freed from the nation’s prisons since the U.S. military attacked the country and seized President Nicolás Maduro in an audacious nighttime raid in the heart of the capital.
“We welcome the release of detained Americans in Venezuela,” the State Department said in a statement on Tuesday night. “This is an important step in the right direction by the interim authorities.”
Under Mr. Maduro, scores of political prisoners were often held for long periods and the international citizens among them were sometimes used by the government as bargaining chips in negotiations. Many were held on vague charges like terrorism or espionage.
Venezuela’s detention of Americans has long been a focus for President Trump. By the summer, more than two dozen U.S. citizens or permanent residents had been released amid his administration’s negotiations with the government, including some in a deal made by Richard Grenell, one of Mr. Trump’s special envoys, days after Mr. Trump’s inauguration in his second term.
The Trump administration’s decision to suspend those talks as the administration recently ramped up its pressure campaign on Mr. Maduro appeared to end such prisoner releases. The number of detained Americans in Venezuela began to rise again in the fall, according to a U.S. official who spoke to The New York Times in December on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to speak publicly.
Mr. Luckey-Lange’s travels coincided with that shift. He wrote in his blog in December that he was doing research on gold mining in the Amazon region of Guyana, which borders Venezuela. On Dec. 7, he wrote to a friend that he was at an unspecified location in Venezuela, and he last spoke to his family the next day.
He said he was heading to the capital, Caracas, where he was planning to catch a flight on Dec. 12 that would eventually take him home to New York. His family reported him missing.
When Mr. Luckey-Lange set out traveling in 2022, his mother had just died. The song she was best known for, “Goodbye Horses,” was featured in the 1991 film “Silence of the Lambs.”
His father, Robert Lange, died last year. Eva Aridjis Fuentes, a filmmaker who worked with Mr. Luckey-Lange for a documentary about Q Lazzarus, said he set out traveling to find his own path. “He has had so much loss,” she said.
Venezuela has about 800 to 900 political prisoners, rights groups estimate. Since last week, some prisoners from Italy and Spain have been among those released, according to Venezuela’s leading human rights organization, Foro Penal.
The country’s interim government has promised to free an “important number” of detainees, but as of Tuesday, only 56 had been released, the rights group said.
At least three Americans had been freed as of Tuesday night, according to a person briefed on the events who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivities around the diplomacy.
A State Department spokeswoman said on Wednesday that she could not confirm if more Americans were detained in Venezuela.
Annie Correal is a Times reporter covering Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean.
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