Antonio José Benavides
Venezuelan colonel, born 1968

Antonio José Benavides Torres (born 13 June 1961) is a Venezuelan Major General and former commander of the Venezuelan National Guard.
As of 2015, Benavides was head of the Central Integral Defense Strategic Region for the National Bolivarian Armed Forces of Venezuela.
Benavides was Head of Government of the Capital District.
Benavides took a one-year course from the United States Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation in Georgia in 2000.
International sanctions
Benavides has been sanctioned by several countries.
United States
The U.S. sanctioned Benavides for his role in the 2014 Venezuelan protests. U.S. President Barack Obama issued a presidential order in 2015 declaring Venezuela a "threat to its national security" and ordered the United States Department of the Treasury to freeze property and assets of seven Venezuelan officials. The U.S. held the seven individuals, including Benavides, responsible for "excesses committed in the repression of the demonstrations of February 2014 that left at least 43 dead" including "erosion of human rights guarantees, persecution of political opponents, restrictions on press freedom, violence and human rights abuses in response to anti-government protests, arbitrary arrests and arrests of anti-government protesters, and significant public corruption" according to BBC Mundo.
Canada
Canada sanctioned 40 Venezuelan officials, including Benavides, in September 2017. The sanctions were for behaviors that undermined democracy after at least 125 people will killed in the 2017 Venezuelan protests and "in response to the government of Venezuela's deepening descent into dictatorship".
“Antonio José Benavides” enters the record as venezuelan colonel, born 1968. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Antonio, José and Benavides can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q63098502. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1961, 2015, 2000 and 2014.
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This entry incorporates text from “Antonio José Benavides” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.