Sacked Venezuelan attorney general arrives in Colombia

Venezuela's sacked attorney general Luisa Ortega, a strident critic of President Nicolas Maduro, arrived today in Colombia, immigration officials said.

Ortega was sacked by a new all-powerful assembly that has overtaken the opposition-controlled National Assembly and is packed with Maduro loyalists.

Ortega arrived with her husband German Ferrer, a lawmaker who faced an arrest warrant issued by the pro-Maduro Supreme Court, after a stopover on Aruba, a Dutch island just off Venezuela, Colombian immigration authorities said in a statement.

Ortega was once a firm supporter of the socialist Maduro but turned outspoken critic as the president defied months of daily street protests seeking early elections and moved to set up the new assembly in what critics at home and abroad dismissed as a power grab.

Colombia did not immediately say what Ortega's immigration status will be or if she is going to seek protection from the government of Bogota, which has joined others in making fierce criticism of Maduro as anti- democratic.

(This article has not been edited by DNA's editorial team and is auto-generated from an agency feed.)