A judge in Venezuela has issued an arrest warrant for the opposition’s former presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez, who claims to have rightfully won July’s disputed election against President Nicolas Maduro.

The warrant was issued on Monday at the request of the office of the public prosecutor, which is conducting a criminal investigation into the closely-fought election. It sought the warrant after 75-year-old Gonzalez, a former diplomat, failed to appear three times to answer questions on charges including conspiracy and falsifying documents in relation to the election.

Attorney general Tarek Saab shared a photo of the warrant with the Reuters news agency via a message on the Telegram platform.

The warrant follows weeks of comments from top government officials saying Gonzalez and other members of the opposition should go to jail.

“This man has the nerve to say he doesn’t recognise laws, he doesn’t recognise anything. What’s up with that? That’s unacceptable,” Maduro said in a broadcast on state television. “Citizens agree that laws have to work and that officials do their job.”

A Gonzalez spokesperson said they were awaiting any notification of a warrant but made no further comment. The opposition has always denied any wrongdoing.

Venezuela’s National Electoral Council (CNE) declared Maduro the winner of the July 28 vote, giving him a third six-year term. The outcome has been disputed by the opposition and much of the international community, with the US going so far as to recognise Gonzalez as the victor.

The CNE, made up mostly of Maduro loyalists, has said it was not able to publish a breakdown of the results because its website was hacked and the data corrupted.

Observers have said there is no evidence to support the claim.

The opposition has published its own polling-station election results, which it says show Gonzalez winning by a wide margin.

Under Venezuelan law, each party participating in the election has the right to a tally sheet from every voting machine. Government supporters attempted to block opposition representatives from obtaining copies of the crucial documents, but it managed to secure them from more than 80 percent of the 30,000 machines. Maduro’s United Socialist Party of Venezuela refused to publish its copies of tally sheets.