By FABIOLA SANCHEZ

Associated Press

CARACAS, Venezuela — Opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez was released from prison and placed under house arrest Saturday after more than three years in a military lockup, a shock reversal by the government that fueled hopes for a broader amnesty for dozens of jailed activists in a country sliding ever deeper into political turmoil.

A euphoric Lopez briefly greeted a few dozen supporters gathered outside his home in Caracas in the afternoon. Climbing atop a wall dressed in a white shirt, he clutched and then kissed a Venezuelan flag and raised his right fist in a show of defiance.

Lopez vowed that he is prepared to return to jail rather than give up his fight to remove socialist President Nicolas Maduro.

“This is a step in the march toward freedom,” Lopez said in a statement read by close ally and lawmaker Freddy Guevara. “I carry no resentment, nor will I give up my beliefs. My position against this regime is firm as are my convictions to fight for a real peace, coexistence, change and freedom.”

Venezuela’s government-stacked Supreme Court said in a statement that it granted Lopez the “humanitarian measures” for health reasons and also for “serious signs of irregularities” in the handling of the case that it did not specify.

As his backers celebrated, relatives of dozens of other jailed activists gathered at a jail in Caracas run by Venezuela’s intelligence police in hopes that their loved ones might also be released in the coming hours.

Speculation that Lopez’s pre-dawn transfer may have been part of a larger deal was sparked in part by a government truth commission statement saying that as part of its work to defuse tensions, it had asked the judicial system to evaluate applying “alternative formulas” for those imprisoned for violent acts.