Madrid has firmly rejected claims by Venezuela that two Spanish nationals arrested in the country at the weekend were part of an international plot to kill President Nicolás Maduro, amid a mounting diplomatic crisis between the two nations.
Three US citizens and a Czech national were also arrested at the weekend, according to Venezuelan interior minister Diosdado Cabello.
The Spanish nationals, identified as José María Basoa and Andrés Martínez Adasme, were arrested in the west of the country near the Colombian border on Saturday.
Mr Cabello said they had confessed to involvement in a plan by Spain’s CNI intelligence service, with CIA involvement, “promoting the recruitment of terrorists to come to Venezuela”. He said the plan’s objective was to assassinate Mr Maduro, vice-president Delcy Rodríguez and other political leaders.
However, Spain’s foreign ministry said that its two nationals who were arrested had no connection to the intelligence services or any other state agency. “Spain denies and rejects any insinuation that it is involved in a political operation in Venezuela,” the ministry said.
The families of the Spanish men, who are both from the northern city of Bilbao, have said that they had gone to Venezuela on holiday.
The US state department also issued a statement in which it said: “Any claims of US involvement in a plot to overthrow Maduro are categorically false”.
The arrests follow several days of tensions between Venezuela and Spain. The opposition politician Edmundo González, who, according to his supporters, defeated Mr Maduro in a July election, arrived in Madrid on September 8th, requesting asylum. He had gone into hiding in Caracas after the election, which Mr Maduro insists he won despite widespread international condemnation.
Spain has close ties to the country and last week, its Congress passed an opposition motion urging the left-wing coalition of Pedro Sánchez to recognise Mr González as president-elect of Venezuela.
Although the Spanish government does not acknowledge Mr Maduro as the winner of the election, it is keeping to the line of the European Union, which wants to see electoral documents before recognising his opponent as the victor.
The parliamentary motion drew an angry response from Jorge Rodríguez, president of Venezuela’s national assembly, who called for all diplomatic and commercial ties with Spain to be broken off.
The crisis escalated when Spain’s defence minister, Margarita Robles, described the Maduro administration as a “dictatorship”. Caracas responded by summoning the Spanish ambassador for a reprimand and recalling Venezuela’s ambassador in Madrid for consultation.
On Monday, the Spanish prime minister again called on the Venezuelan government to “publish electoral documents and allow an impartial and independent verification of the results of the last election”, a demand which he said was shared by “most Western countries and with the other members of the European Union”.
- Sign up for push alerts and have the best news, analysis and comment delivered directly to your phone
- Join The Irish Times on WhatsApp and stay up to date
- Listen to our Inside Politics podcast for the best political chat and analysis
