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News > Venezuela

Venezuela Advances Investigation Against Guaido

  • Juan Guaido proclaimed himself interim president of Venezuela Jan. 23 this year, days after President Maduro's inauguration.

    Juan Guaido proclaimed himself interim president of Venezuela Jan. 23 this year, days after President Maduro's inauguration. | Photo: Reuters

Published 19 February 2019
Opinion

“Clearly, this legislative body through criminal means intends to seize national powers,” Attorney General Tarek William Saab said.

Venezuela’s public prosecutor's office is advancing the investigation on the lawmaker, Juan Guaido, of the National Assembly, the legistlative body in contempt under the constitution, over his attempt to usurp governmental powers after proclaiming himself interim president of Venezuela.

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Attorney General Tarek William Saab said that Guaido and his National Assembly appointments are part of a foreign-backed illegal power grab, adding that ambassadors of Guaido’s self-declared interim government are also being investigated as part of the investigation.

“Clearly, this legislative body through criminal means intends to seize national powers,” Saab said in a news conference broadcast on state TV, calling the move part of a “circus.”

A judge in the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ), Juan José Mendoza noted last month that the National Assembly "is in express violation of Article 236, numerals 4 and 15, seeming to usurp the responsilibites of the President of the Republic in directing foreign relations for the State."

The TSJ also ruled on the unconstitutionality of the National Assembly’s acts in favor of Guaido, saying that the assembly continues to be in judicial contempt. In statements to the press, the MP’s top representative stressed that the evidence of the constitutional violations carried out by Guaido since Jan. 23 will be made public.

Guaido currently has support from the United States who wants Maduro to resign from the presidency. The first measure dictated by the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) focused on prohibiting Guaido from leaving the country, seizing his property and blocking his accounts; acts that were reiterated this week by Saab, highlighting the severity of the crime of usurpation of of public offices, especially of the executive and legislative institutions.

He also stressed that Guaido's actions forward a coup attempt by right-wing politicians, promoted by the United States government against the Bolivarian Revolution.

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Caracas rejected in a statement U.S. President Donald Trump's assertion that "all options remain on the table" in relation to the intention to overthrow the head of state, Nicolas Maduro.

In the face of a possible and imminent threat of U.S. invasion, President Maduro authorized the Bolivarian National Armed Forces “to respond with all moral rectictitude and dignity to the intentions of a coup d'etat, and thus defend national sovereignty,” Prensa Latina reported.

Maduro denounced the alleged 'humanitarian aid' that the U.S. offered to Venezuela on Feb. 23 through the Colombia/Venezuela border state of Tachira, because it is a “show and a booby trap.”

'They rob us of US$30 billion and offer us US$20 million in contaminated, rotten food to try to intervene in the nation and go across the border to occupy spaces” he said.

The Venezuelan government announced Wednesday that Russia will provide the country with 300 tons of high-cost medicine that the Venezuelan state has “paid with our hands, with dignity," Maduro said.

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