Through his lawyer, Jose Vicente Haro, Venezuelan opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia is urging prosecutors not to engage in what he calls political persecution. Threatened with arrest for insisting he is the rightful winner of July's presidential election, Gonzalez Urrutia has been in hiding for a month, and his lawyer says he has ignored three successive summons to appear before prosecutors in order to "preserve his physical integrity." The president has said Gonzalez Urrutia belongs behind bars along with opposition leader Maria Corina Machado -- whom Gonzalez Urrutia, a retired diplomat, replaced on the ballot at the last minute after she was barred from running. IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES