Maduro calls the detained Spaniards “terrorists” and claims they are “undercover agents” of the CNI

September 17 () –

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has described José María Basoa Valdovinos and Andrés Martínez Adasme, the Spaniards arrested for their alleged links to the Venezuelan opposition, as “terrorists.” He accuses them of preparing a plan to assassinate the president, and has assured that they are “undercover” agents of the Spanish National Intelligence Center (CNI).

Maduro has stated that these “terrorists”, who according to his relatives were tourists, in “their libertarian times planted bombs”: “It is a new type of tourism: adventure tourism. They come to plant bombs and kill people here. Explosive tourism,” he said ironically in his intervention in the program ‘Con Maduro+’.

He also asserted that “those arrested have been convicted and confessed” and that the “evidence” presented is not “even ten percent of the full evidence that is already in the hands of the justice system” and “involves peaceful tourists” of “various” European nationalities “who came to plant bombs and kill.”

The president has stated that “the hegemonic media of the Spanish right” have tried to “victimize the murderers, the terrorists, the perpetrators.” “Now it turns out that they were good boys, tourists who were out for a walk and who were captured by the Venezuelan dictatorship and disappeared,” he said.

Maduro also said that “their relatives or friends, or the CNI and the Spanish government” will not come out and say that they are agents and that they should be handed over. In addition to Basoa and Martínez, three Americans, one of them a marine, and a Czech citizen were also arrested, and 400 American rifles were seized.

For his part, the Minister of the Interior, Diosdado Cabello, has pointed out that the CNI is attached to the Ministry of Defense but is “a totally independent entity of the Spanish Government” and that “it depends on the CIA”, carrying out “operations throughout the world in compliance with the instructions” of Washington.

Cabello, who has indicated that she has made a “significant seizure of weapons,” has taken the opportunity to criticize the Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, who recently referred to the Maduro government as a “dictatorship,” which caused a recent diplomatic crisis. “Robles attacked Venezuela in an act that was the baptism of a book, which had nothing to do with it, and decided to turn her guns against Venezuela. She knew what she was up to,” she said.

Following the arrests of the Basque citizens, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation has requested from Caracas “official and verified” information, as well as a “clarification of the charges” of which they are accused. The Spanish Government denied that both belong to the Spanish Intelligence services and detailed that the Embassy sent a verbal note to the Venezuelan Government “requesting access to the detainees.”

The relatives of the detainees, who are from Bilbao, filed a complaint with the Ertzaintza to report their disappearance on 9 September. According to the Basque Department of Security, the relatives alerted the Basque Police to the situation, which took steps and was able to confirm that both were detained in Venezuela, a fact which was reported to the families.