Venezuela releases dozens of detainees arrested after July's contested election

CARACAS - Venezuelan authorities said on Thursday that they have released 103 people this week who had been arrested amid anti-government protests following last July's contested presidential election.

President Nicolas Maduro was proclaimed the winner of the July 28 vote by the government-aligned electoral authority and supreme court even though both bodies have refused to release ballot-box level voting records to back up the claim. Raucous street protests erupted hours after the initial claim that Maduro had won.

Shortly after the election, the opposition uploaded to a website thousands of scanned copies of voting machine receipts their observers obtained that they say prove their candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez, won a landslide victory.

Maduro had said that some 2,000 people were arrested in the post-election protests.

Earlier this week, opposition political party Vente Venezuela, said three of its regional leaders had been arrested.

The party is led by the South American country's most prominent opposition leader, Maria Corina Machado. Last January, the country's top court ratified a block to her own plans to run for president.

The government's citizen security office announced that this week's prisoner release followed a request by Maduro "to review all the cases concerning acts of violence and crimes committed in the framework of the election," according to a statement read on state television.

Last month, the Attorney General's Office said 225 detainees were granted "freedom measures." But most of them must appear in court every 30 days, which rights groups say does not constitute full freedom.

The protests left 28 people dead and almost 200 injured while some 500 properties were destroyed, including schools and health centers, according to Attorney General Tarek Saab.

(Reporting by Vivian Sequera; Writing by Sarah Morland; Editing by David Alire Garcia)