MADRID (AP) — The government says it has granted Spanish citizenship to the editor of Venezuela's El Nacional newspaper because of the political persecution it said he was subjected to in his country.

A government statement Friday said Miguel Henrique Otero, whose paper is the last remaining national newspaper critical of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's government, fled his country "for fear of reprisals" after having received "threats from the Venezuelan regime."

Otero runs El Nacional from Spain. He was barred from leaving Venezuela in 2015 when the head of Maduro's Socialist party sued him for republishing an article from Spanish newspaper ABC that linked the party chief to drug cartels. But Otero was out of the country at the time of the barring and later moved to Spain.