Three Venezuelans plead guilty for aiding anti-Maduro plot
This photo released by the Venezuelan Miraflores presidential press office shows what Venezuelan authorities identify as the I.D. cards of former U.S. special forces citizen Airan Berry, right, and Luke Denman, left, in Caracas, Venezuela, May 4, 2020. Venezuelan authorities say they arrested the two U.S. citizens among a group of “mercenaries” on March 8, a day after a beach raid purportedly aimed at capturing Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro thatVenezuelan authorities say they foiled. Miraflores Palace presidential press office via AP
MIAMI Three Venezuelan men pleaded guilty to helping organize an ill-conceived invasion last year to remove President Nicolas Maduro.
3 Venezuelans plead guilty for aiding anti-Maduro plot By Associated Press
Share: FILE - In this May 3, 2020 file photo, Veneuzuelan security forces guard the shore and a boat in which authorities claim a group of armed men landed in the port city of La Guaira, Venezuela, calling it an armed maritime incursion from neighboring Colombia. Yacsy Alvarez, a woman who was charged in Colombia with helping organize the attempted armed invasion to overthrow Venezuela s socialist government, says Colombian authorities were aware of the plotters movements and did nothing to stop them and that she s being made a scapegoat for the sins of others who abandoned the would be rebels. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix, File)
3 Venezuelans plead guilty for aiding anti-Maduro plot
JOSHUA GOODMAN, Associated Press Writer
March 5, 2021
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MIAMI (AP) Three Venezuelan men pleaded guilty to helping organize an ill-conceived invasion last year to remove President Nicolás Maduro.
In Friday’s hearing before a Colombian court, the men acknowledged their role alongside Jordan Goudreau, a former American Green Beret and Iraq war veteran, in organizing a rag tag army of a few dozen Venezuelan military deserters intent on overthrowing Venezuela’s socialist leadership. Plans included raiding military installations as well as the presidential palace.
“I apologize to the Colombian government,” one of the men, National Guard Maj. Juvenal Sequea, told a judge in Bogota on Friday as he and two other accepted lighter charges of providing advice and logistical support to illegal armed groups. “I accept responsibility for my actions but want people to understand that this is all the result
COLOMBIAN President Ivan Duque was central to an attempt to overthrow the Venezuelan government, according to a woman detained in Bogota last year in connection with gun smuggling.
Yacsy Alvarez insists that Mr Duque knew all the details of the plot, codenamed Operation Gideon, against his Venezuelan counterpart Nicolas Maduro.
Speaking from La Picalena prison in the central city of Ibague, she explained that she was working with Colombian intelligence services who supported the coup attempt foiled by Venezuela’s armed forces on May 3 last year.
“I was always in contact with National Intelligence Directorate officials. They were aware of Gideon Operation, they knew everything,” Ms Alvarez claimed.