Maduro blames US for plotting his 2018 drone assassination bid

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: News websites
6 Aug 2023 17:31

President Nicolas Maduro stated that "everything points" to a right-wing plot linked to Colombia and the United States.

Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro speaks during a press conference at the Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas, Venezuela, Tuesday, May 17, 2016. (AP)

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has reiterated that the US was directly involved in the 2018 drone assassination plot against him, accusing the then-US-backed Colombian president of being a co-conspirator.

Speaking on Friday at a ceremony to mark the 86th anniversary of the establishment of the Venezuelan National Guard, which fell on the same day as the failed assassination attempt in 2018, Maduro said both the United States and Colombia were involved in the attack.

Maduro stated that his former US counterpart, Donald Trump, was the mastermind behind the assassination plot, as the order came directly from the White House. He added that following investigations, it was revealed that Colombia's then-president, Juan Manuel Santos, was Trump's accomplice.

Santos was "the direct operator from Bogota" who financed and planned the assassination just days before he was to leave office, Maduro said, adding that the failed assassination attempt was carried out by a "terrorist group" organized in Colombia.

Both Washington and Colombia have denied any involvement in the attack. John Bolton, the US national security advisor at the time, even claimed the attack was "a pretext set up by the regime itself."

On August 4, 2018, two assassination drones carrying explosives detonated over the stage where Maduro was delivering an outdoor speech to National Guard members in Caracas. That said, Maduro was unharmed in the incident. However, the blasts left a number of soldiers injured.

The explosions were captured on video, with Maduro's bodyguards leaping to protect the president with ballistic shields before whisking him away. Following 91 separate court hearings that lasted until August 2022, the seventeen suspects linked to the incident were sentenced to prison terms ranging from five to thirty years.

Maduro's second assassination attempt

The assassination attempt in 2018 was not a first for the Venezuelan president. The president accused the US in 2021 of attempting to assassinate him in 2020.

"Did Joe Biden endorse Donald Trump's orders to lead Venezuela into a civil war and kill us?" the Venezuelan president commented during a military ceremony, on July 3, 2021, on the visits made by CIA Director William Burns and the commander of the US Southern Command, Admiral Craig Faller, to Colombia and Brazil.

On December 8, 2020, Maduro revealed an assassination plot targeting him during the legislative elections.

Maduro indicated that "I changed my polling station because there was information about a plot to assassinate me," adding that "a very reliable Colombian intelligence source told me that the assassination was planned to be live and broadcast."

On 26 June 2019, a "coup" attempt was thwarted, including a plan to assassinate President Nicolas Maduro and appoint a general in his place.