Once targeted by Maduro, a Toronto mother and her daughter celebrate his ouster

Heather Wright speaks with a former Venezuelan judge about her experiences fleeing Venezuela after being threatened and stalked by the Maduro regime.

The fall of Nicolas Maduro is something Ralenis Tovar is still trying to wrap her head around.

“It was like goosebumps,” she said. “I couldn’t believe it. I said, ‘Oh my god, finally.’ It’s a dream. It’s real.”

Before fleeing to Canada with her daughter and husband in 2017, Tovar was a judge in Caracas, the Venezuelan capital. In 2014, she was told by government officials to return to her office late one night to sign arrest warrants, including one for Leopoldo Lopez, an opposition leader in Venezuela and fierce critic of Maduro.

“I ask ‘what is this?’” she recalled. She says the response was to not ask any questions and just sign the paper.

“They told me, ‘If you don’t do this, you have to go to prison,’” she said. “‘If you don’t sign it, you know where you are going to go.’”

But Tovar says the threats didn’t stop there. She says she was followed, her phone was tapped and suspicious men showed up at her daughter’s school.

When another judge involved in the Lopez case was found murdered, she says it was time to leave. She applied for refugee status after landing in Toronto.

“It was scary,” she said. “I was just thinking about my daughter.”

While the U.S. military action in Venezuela has been criticized by both allies and adversaries, Tovar is among those celebrating the toppling of a dictator she describes as evil.

“He is a narco,” she said. “He trafficked drugs, he kills people.”

Both Tovar and her daughter, Maria Galindez Tovar, feel a sense of relief with Maduro gone, but they worry there won’t be real change with most of his regime still in power.

“(U.S. President Donald Trump) just got one guy out, which we appreciate a lot, but it’s not it’s not over until we get all of those people out,” says Maria Galindez Tovar, who was 12 when she left Venezuela.

“The rest of the regime is still there,” added Ralenis Tovar. “So it’s not that real freedom. Maybe we are starting to taste the freedom, but it’s not the real freedom yet.”

With files from CTV News’ Kristen Yu