Venezuela's intelligence service took two prominent opposition leaders back to prison early on Tuesday, authorities said, as embattled President Nicolas Maduro moved to shore up his power after an election widely denounced as a sham.
The action, carried out in the dead of night, came one day before a new assembly elected on Sunday is supposed to take office, superseding the opposition-controlled legislature.
In a statement, the Supreme Court said leopoldo lopez and Caracas mayor Antonio ledezma were sent back to prison because they had violated the terms of their house arrest by making political statements.
Authorities acted with urgency, it said, because they had received intelligence that the pair "had a plan to flee."
lawyers for the two men vehemently denied the existence of any escape plans. lopez was guarded around the clock by at least six heavily armed intelligence agents, said his lawyer Juan Carlos Gutierrez, adding that escape was an "absolutely non-existent" possibility.
ledezma's lawyer, Omar Estacio, said the security forces repeatedly had withdrawn the guard around his client, "leaving the door open so he could escape," and yet he hadn't done so.
"This is outrageous, it is unacceptable, it is absolutely arbitrary," said National Assembly speaker Julio Borges.
The men are two of Venezuela's most high profile opposition leaders. Both had called for a boycott of Sunday's vote for a so-called and all-powerful "constituent assembly" tasked with rewriting the constitution.They were picked up by the intelligence service known by its acronym Sebin, the wife of lopez and children of ledezma said separately.
Both families said they held Maduro, the driving force behind the vote, responsible for the opposition leaders' lives.
"They just took leopoldo away. We do not know where he is or where they are taking him," lopez's wife lilian Tintori said on Twitter.
She released home security camera footage in which four uniformed police officers and three others in civilian garb are seen putting her husband into a car and taking off, with other cars escorting them.
The children of ledezma -- named Victor, Vanessa and Antonietta also said on Twitter that the intelligence service had taken away their father.
Opposition leaders and local media posted cellphone footage of ledezma being taken away from his home forcibly while still wearing pajamas.
"We keep calling the Government of Venezuela to work towards urgent confidence-building measures aimed at de- escalating the tensions and fostering better conditions for resuming efforts towards a peaceful negotiated solution," said Catherine Ray, a spokeswoman for EU diplomatic chief Federica Mogherini.
In Washington, the senior US diplomat for the Americas, Acting Assistant Secretary Antonio Francisco Palmieri, tweeted that the detentions were "further evidence of the Maduro regime's authoritarianism."
lopez, 46, was transferred to house arrest in July after serving three years and five months in prison as part of a 14 -year term. He had been convicted of instigating violence during protests against Maduro in 2014 that left 43 people dead.