Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro on Monday vowed to produce proof that Colombia was behind an alleged assassination attempt against him on Saturday.
Maduro took to Twitter to claim that he has “enough proof” to implicate the government of neighboring Colombia in what he refers to as “the frustrated assassination attempt.”
“There is sufficient evidence of the participation of the outgoing Colombian government of President Juan Manuel Santos,” said Maduro.
Informo al pueblo de Venezuela que seguimos trabajando en las investigaciones del Magnicidio en Grado de Frustración. En las próximas horas estaré presentando pruebas contundentes de la vinculación que tiene la oligarquía colombiana con los hechos de la Av. Bolívar. pic.twitter.com/Dt9eysTPI6
— Nicolás Maduro (@NicolasMaduro) August 7, 2018
Video footage from Saturday’s political rally showed people running after what the Venezuelan authorities said was the detonation of two explosive drones. One explosion was heard before Venezuelan state television abruptly ended its transmission.
Videos of exploding drones at the event were later published on social media.
According to the Venezuelan head of state, former Venezuelan opposition leader Julio Borges would be behind attack, and Borges “lives in a mansion in Bogota paid for by the outgoing government of Colombia.”
The “evidence” presented by Maduro consisted of a video in which one of the suspected bombers, a former Venezuelan security official, said that Borges had coordinated, prepared and rehearsed the attack from Colombia.
Maduro’s latest claims are less explosive than the ones he made on Saturday when he claimed that “the name of Juan Manuel Santos is behind this attack.”
Colombia’s Foreign Ministry on Sunday rejected the accusations and called them “absurd.”
Santos, who was replaced as president of Colombia by hard-right Ivan Duque on Tuesday, rejected any suggestion that he or his government had anything to do with the incident.
“For God’s sake. To Venezuela’s president I say this: On Saturday I was doing more important things. I was at my granddaughter’s baptism,” said Santos.
Colombia grants temporary visa to more than 440K migrants from Venezuela
The increasingly authoritarian nature of Maduro’s government in Venezuela has led to a break down in diplomatic relations between the two countries.
On other occasions, Maduro blamed Colombian paramilitary groups of trying to further destabilize the country whose crisis has spurred the migration of more than a million people over the past two years.
Santos last week issued a decree that provided decreed a two-year visa for some 440,000 Venezuelans who have fled a crisis in their home country.
