The Venezuelan government is seizing the advantage over its US-backed political adversaries in the wake of bungled attempt to topple President Nicolas Maduro.
Venezuelan courts will try 31 suspects, including two former US soldiers detained after government security forces foiled an amphibious coup attempt on 3 May, Venezuela's attorney general Tarek William Saab said this morning.
He also announced arrest warrants for US military veteran Jordan Goudreau, head of US private security firm Silvercorp that allegedly spearheaded the 3-4 May raids at Macuto and Chuao, and US-based Venezuelan political operatives Juan Jose Rendon and Sergio Vergara on charges of terrorism, conspiracy and arms trafficking.
Saab said the failed coup, dubbed Operation Gedeon by its chief architect Goudreau, was aimed at assassinating Maduro and other senior Venezuelan government officials.
Rendon and Vergara reside in Florida, but Goudreau's present whereabouts are unknown, an aide to Saab said.
The Colombian government, a fervent foe of Maduro and a key US ally, has denied any links to the weekend episode.
Venezuela's government will seek the extradition of Rendon and Vergara from the US, and also will ask Interpol to issue red notices for their arrest abroad.
US military veterans Luke Denman and Airan Berry, who were arrested with six Venezuelan nationals in the fishing village of Chuao in Aragua state, are charged with terrorism, illegal arms trafficking and conspiracy, Saab said.
An aide to Interior and justice minister Nestor Reverol told Argus that Denman and Berry "will be judged with the full force of Venezuelan law." The official would not say whether the alleged coup plotters will be tried by military or civilian courts.
The other 29 detainees whom Saab identified as Venezuelan soldiers who were living in Colombia and Peru are charged with conspiring with a foreign government, terrorism, treason against the nation, illegal arms trafficking and financing terrorism.
Government security forces are pursuing up to 20 more former Venezuelan soldiers allegedly still at large along Venezuela's coast, Saab added.
Juan Guaido, the US-supported opposition leader who is recognized by dozens of countries as Venezuela's legitimate acting president in place of Maduro, has not issued any declarations since a 6 May statement from his interim government denying "any link, commitment or responsibility with the company Silvercorp or its actions." A spokesman said he would break his silence this afternoon.
No secret
The US administration, which has a broad array of financial, oil and individual targeted sanctions on Venezuela and in March issued a $15mn bounty for information leading to Maduro's capture, continues to deny direct involvement in the incursions. But it has not condemned them or disclosed if it had prior knowledge of them.
"If I wanted to go into Venezuela, I would not make a secret about it. I would not send a small little group," President Donald Trump said in a television interview today.
The US administration had backed a failed military uprising in Caracas on 30 April 2019, but US officials conceded at the time that they had overestimated Venezuelan senior military support.
The administration's half-hearted explanations led a group of Democratic senators to press for answers from the State and Justice departments and the office of the national intelligence director, which oversees the US intelligence community.
"Either the US government was unaware of these planned operations, or was aware and allowed them to proceed. Both possibilities are problematic," senator Chris Murphy (D-Connecticut) and three of his Democratic colleagues wrote in a letter yesterday asking the administration to disclose whether it was directly or indirectly aware of plans by Goudreau to stage an armed attack.
