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WASHINGTON — <\/span>Multiple Americans who were detained in Venezuela have been released, the Trump administration said Tuesday. <\/p>\n \u201cWe welcome the release of detained Americans in Venezuela,\u201d the State Department said. \u201cThis is an important step in the right direction by the interim authorities.\u201d <\/p>\n The State Department did not provide the exact numbers of those released. But a person familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe non-public details, said four Americans were released as a group Tuesday and one was quietly released Monday.<\/p>\n The releases come after the U.S. captured Venezuelan President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro in a stunning nighttime raid earlier this month.<\/p>\n The head of Venezuela\u2019s national assembly, Jorge Rodr\u00edguez, said last week that a \u201csignificant number\u201d of Venezuelan and foreigners imprisoned in the country would be released as a gesture to \u201cseek peace\u201d following the military operation that deposed Maduro.<\/p>\n As of Tuesday evening, the Venezuela human rights group Foro Penal had confirmed 56 prisoners it said were detained for political reasons had been freed. The group criticized the lack of government transparency over the releases. Venezuela\u2019s government negated the organization\u2019s count, and reported a far higher figure of 400 Tuesday afternoon.<\/p>\n But the government did not provide evidence of the releases or a time range in which they were carried out, nor did it identify those freed, making it impossible to determine whether those freed were behind bars for political or other reasons.<\/p>\n Though Washington and Caracas have long had a fraught and limited relationship, prisoner releases have been a rare source of connection, with the two countries in engaging in a series of swaps of detained citizens.<\/p>\n