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Free­dom came too late for Edil­son Tor­res. The po­lice of­fi­cer was buried Tues­day in his hum­ble, rur­al home­town fol­low­ing his death in a Venezue­lan prison, where he was held in­com­mu­ni­ca­do since his De­cem­ber de­ten­tion on what his fam­i­ly said were po­lit­i­cal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed ac­cu­sa­tions.

Be­fore the ser­vice, a fu­ner­al pro­ces­sion stopped at a lo­cal jail, where his wife re­mains de­tained on dis­put­ed ac­cu­sa­tions.

Tor­res, 51, died of a heart at­tack on Sat­ur­day, just as his fam­i­ly await­ed the gov­ern­ment’s promised re­lease of pris­on­ers fol­low­ing the U.S. cap­ture of then-Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro. His death comes as scores of fam­i­lies like his — who once hes­i­tat­ed to ap­proach ad­vo­ca­cy groups — are now com­ing for­ward to reg­is­ter their loved ones as “po­lit­i­cal pris­on­ers.”