Maduro’s Magnicidio

President Maduro does not claim there is a plot to assassinate him as often as his predecessor did. This week however, Maduro directly accused opposition leader and president of the National Assembly, Julio Borges, of being “implicated” in an assassination plot against him.

“An order has been issued to assassinate the president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, and that order comes from the Oval Office, and Julio Borges is implicated in this outrage with all his unlimited cynicism, with his unlimited immorality,” said Maduro.

The president provided no evidence for his claims, but he had declared on August 19 that US president Trump’s declarations about Venezuela implied a direct threat to his life. According to Maduro:

“The threats made today by Trump, I know how to exactly interpret them: Donald Trump has threatened to kill the President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, (…) but I tell him that if something happened to me, they would regret it for a hundred years, because the people would rise against imperialism.”

“Evidence” of Borge’s part in the plot is provided by the Agencia Venezolana de Noticias (AVN). According to AVN, the position leader is “one of the main promoters of an interventionist campaign against Venezuela. In the last weeks he has met several US government high officials to ask for an assault (arremetida) against the fatherland.”

AVN also cites a previous two coup magnicidio plot claims made by the government as evidence for the current plot: The Carpeta Amarilla (2014), and the Blue Coup plots (2015, also known as the Jericho Operation). No evidence has ever surfaced for those two previous plots.