Caracas, Sep 16 (EFE).- Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro has said that two Spaniards arrested last week are “terrorists” who were trying to destabilize his government.
The two Spanish citizens were arrested last week along with three US citizens and a Czech national, with Venezuela accusing them of plotting to destabilize the South American nation.
In his weekly appearance on his self-titled show on state television on Monday night, Maduro said the two Spanish citizens, Martínez Adasme and José María Basoa Valdovinos, are “undercover agents” for Spain’s National Intelligence Center (CNI).
Maduro also rejected claims by the men’s parents that they were visiting Venezuela as tourists.
They “were captured and that they are convicted, confessed and with full proof of the actions they brought inside Venezuela to assassinate people, place bombs, etcetera,” the president said.
“Now it turns out that they were good guys, tourists, who were taking a walk and were captured”, said Maduro, adding – without evidence – that “it is very striking” that “the Spanish CNI has entered into operations against Venezuela.”
Adasme, 32 and Basoa, 35, were arrested in Puerto Ayacucho, in the southern state of Amazonas. Their families had reported the pair as missing on Sep. 9.
According to the Venezuelan government, a search of their phones revealed conversations on “how to buy explosives” and how to “contact groups that wanted to do some special work”.
Madrid and Washington have both denied the allegations.
The arrests come amid heightened tensions in the wake of Maduro’s disputed victory in July elections in Venezuela, which the international community – including the US and the EU – and the country’s opposition have denounced as fraudulent. EFE
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