T&T citizen accused of plotting against Venezuelan state

Raphael John Lall

Venezue­lan Jus­tice Min­is­ter Dios­da­do Ca­bel­lo, speak­ing on Wednes­day night dur­ing his tele­vi­sion pro­gramme Con El Ma­zo Dan­do, said a Trinidad and To­ba­go na­tion­al was in­volved in “ter­ror­ist ac­tiv­i­ties” aimed at desta­bil­is­ing Venezuela on Mon­day.

Dur­ing the pro­gramme, Ca­bel­lo held up a smart­phone and, speak­ing in Span­ish, iden­ti­fied the Trinida­di­an as “Gis Kendel Jheron.”

He re­peat­ed Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro’s claim that “ter­ror­ists” used Trinidad and To­ba­go as a launch­pad to desta­bilise the Venezue­lan Gov­ern­ment.

“To­day, a Trinida­di­an cit­i­zen was cap­tured. It’s not just Colom­bians who are en­ter­ing through Trinidad. Mer­ce­nar­ies from Trinidad are al­so en­ter­ing. He is be­ing held un­der close pro­tec­tion, with re­spect for his hu­man rights. He is part of a ter­ror­ist group that want­ed to en­ter Venezuela,” Ca­bel­lo said. He added that he would not pro­vide fur­ther de­tails.

Ca­bel­lo al­so warned of pos­si­ble at­tempts to dis­tort the iden­ti­ty of the de­tained man, say­ing sar­cas­ti­cal­ly, “Sure­ly to­mor­row it will be re­vealed that he is a mis­sion­ary or an ath­lete.”

He was re­spond­ing to a state­ment is­sued by the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go ear­li­er on Wednes­day, which said there is no ev­i­dence that a “group of ter­ror­ists” at­tempt­ed to en­ter Venezuela via its bor­der, as Maduro had claimed.

T&T’s Min­istry of De­fence said it has launched a thor­ough in­ves­ti­ga­tion. Pre­lim­i­nary find­ings in­di­cate there is cur­rent­ly no ev­i­dence to sup­port the al­le­ga­tions.

Speak­ing ear­li­er on Wednes­day evening in Mon­a­gas, dur­ing the swear­ing-in cer­e­mo­ny of Ernesto Lu­na as the state’s new gov­er­nor, Ca­bel­lo again re­ferred to Trinidad and To­ba­go and vowed to pur­sue any­one at­tempt­ing to desta­bilise Venezuela.

“There must be jus­tice. We are go­ing af­ter the gangs, wher­ev­er they are and wher­ev­er they are. To­geth­er, we will guar­an­tee peace in this coun­try.”