WASHINGTON — A Utah man jailed in Venezuela on weapons charges nearly two years ago was released Saturday after a US senator pressed for his freedom in a surprise meeting with President Nicolas Maduro.

‘‘We are grateful to all who participated in this miracle,’’ Joshua Holt’s family said in a statement.

President Trump invited Holt and his family to the White House on Saturday evening.

‘‘Good news about the release of the American hostage from Venezuela. ... The great people of Utah will be very happy!’’ Trump said in a Twitter message

The 26-year-old Holt traveled to Venezuela in June 2016 to marry a woman he met online while he was looking for Spanish-speaking Mormons to improve his Spanish.

His release came after Senator Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, met with Maduro on Friday. The meeting was the result of months of secret, backchannel talks about Holt between one of the senator’s aides and close allies of the Venezuelan president.

Holt’s release looked unlikely a week ago, when he appeared in a clandestinely shot video railing against the Maduro government and saying his life was threatened in a prison riot.

In retaliation, socialist party boss Diosdado Cabello, a powerful ally of Maduro, said on state television that Holt was the CIA’s top spy in Latin America.

It’s not clear if Holt’s release portends a thawing of relations between the two normally hostile governments. The Trump administration has threatened crippling oil sanctions on Venezuela for Maduro’s decision to go forward with presidential elections last week that the United States has called a ‘‘sham.’’

Information Minister Jorge Rodriguez said the release of the Holts was a goodwill gesture that followed months of dialogue between Maduro’s government and US lawmakers.

‘‘We’re praying that this types of gestures by our president . . . will allow us to strength what we've always sought: dialogue, harmony, respect for our independence, and respect for our sovereignty,’’ he said.

Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, who has Trump’s ear on Latin America, said the couple’s ‘‘release will in no way change US policy towards the dictatorship in Venezuela.’’

Holt’s wife, Thamara, also was freed. The couple went to the US Embassy in Caracas before flying to Washington.

Senator Orrin Hatch, Republican of Utah, said Holt soon would be reunited with ‘‘his sweet, long-suffering family’’ in Riverton, Utah, where one of his wife’s two daughters from previous relationships has been living with Holt’s mother.

The US government at first avoided ratcheting up public pressure on Venezuela amid already strained relations between the two countries, but eventually raised Holt’s case to the highest levels of the Venezuela government.

Hatch and Representative Mia Love, Republican of Utah, also lobbied on behalf of Holt and decried his poor treatment in prison.

Holt had planned to spend several months in Caracas in the summer of 2016 with his new wife, Thamara Caleno, and her two daughters, to secure their visas so they could move with him to the United States

Instead, the couple was arrested at her family’s government housing complex on the outskirts of Caracas.

Authorities arrested him on June 30, 2016, and accused him of stockpiling an assault rifle and grenades, suggesting his case was linked to other unspecified US attempts to undermine Maduro’s rule amid deep economic and political turbulence.

They had been held in a notorious Caracas prison run by the secret police that’s also home to dozens of Maduro’s top opponents who have been jailed during the past few years of political unrest in the country.

Their trial was set to begin this month after repeated delays that led the Trump administration to question the motives for his detention, although until Trump’s tweet Saturday, the United States had stopped short of publicly calling Holt a ‘‘hostage.’’

Holt’s mother, Laurie Holt, said all along that her son and his wife were wrongly accused. She worked feverishly to bring attention to her son’s incarceration, hosting rallies, fund-raisers, and doing media interviews.