Three Americans and two Spaniards held over ‘CIA plot to kill Maduro’

The US rejects claims its intelligence agency is behind an operation to assassinate the Venezuelan president

Venezuela said on Sunday that it had arrested two US citizens for plotting the assassination of Nicolas Maduro, its president.
Washington dismissed the accusations that the CIA planned to kill the country’s autocratic socialist leader.
Venezuela claimed it had arrested three US citizens, two Spaniards and one Czech national on suspicion of plotting to destabilise the country.
“Any claims of US involvement in a plot to overthrow Maduro are categorically false,” a US State Department spokesman responded.
Describing the detainees as “mercenaries”, Diosdado Cabello, Venezuela’s interior minister, claimed that the CIA was “leading the operation” and that 400 rifles had been seized.
“We know that the United States government has links to this operation,” said Mr Cabello. “[The detainees] contacted French mercenaries, they contacted mercenaries from Eastern Europe and they are in an operation to try to attack our country.”
The US State Department confirmed that a US military member was in Venezuelan custody, and noted “unconfirmed reports” that two additional US citizens had been detained.
The incident comes amid a standoff between Washington and Caracas after the US announced this week it was placing sanctions on 16 Venezuelan officials closely aligned with Maduro over the president’s disputed election win on July 28.
Venezuela’s national electoral council declared Maduro the victor, but did not publish any data proving his win.
The opposition obtained over 80 per cent of the country’s voting receipts, which it said showed Maduro had won just 30 per cent of the vote, compared with 67 per cent for rival Edmundo González Urrutia.
In response, the US Treasury said it was targeting “key officials involved in Maduro’s fraudulent and illegitimate claims of victory and his brutal crackdown on free expression following the election”.
A State Department official said the US “continues to support a democratic solution to the political crisis in Venezuela”.
Mr Urrutia, 75, was threatened with arrest and went into exile in Spain last week.
Mr Cabello said the arrested Spanish nationals were connected to the Spanish intelligence services and were detained in Puerto Ayacucho, south of the capital Caracas.
Spanish media reported that government sources denied the pair had links to Madrid’s intelligence services.
“Spain denies and categorically rejects any insinuation that it is involved in a political destabilisation operation in Venezuela,” a source was quoted as saying.
Madrid has requested more information from Venezuelan authorities over the arrests, and access to the detainees.
On Friday, Venezuela’s foreign minister summoned Spain’s ambassador in response to a Spanish minister’s description of the country as a “dictatorship”.
The Czech Republic has yet to respond to the claims.