Venezuelan court seizes newspaper office in defamation case

In this file photo taken on December 14, 2018, a woman shows the last printed edition of Venezuelan newspaper El Nacional with its front page reading "El Nacional is a worrior and will keep on fighting" at a newspaper stand in Caracas. - Venezuelan justice on Friday seized the headquarters of the newspaper El Nacional, a critic of the government of Nicolás Maduro, to cover the 13 million dollars that a court ordered it to pay to the number two of chavismo in a defamation lawsuit. - AFP

CARACAS: A Venezuelan court on Friday seized the headquarters of the El Nacional newspaper, after it failed to pay a $13 million defamation award to top socialist party official Diosdado Cabello, both Cabello and the paper's leaders said.

Venezuela's Supreme Tribunal of Justice (TSJ) last month issued the award, which stems from a 2015 lawsuit Cabello - a lawmaker and vice president of the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela - filed against El Nacional after it reprinted a Spanish newspaper article asserting U.S. officials were investigating Cabello for alleged ties to drug trafficking.