Daily Times

The Venezuelan authorities were looking for the helicopter pilot accused of attempted coup d’état on Thursday, an episode that arouses skepticism in the country, which is plagued by a wave of protests that killed 82 people in nearly three months.

Two days after a helicopter overflew Caracas, according to the government, four grenades were thrown at the Supreme Court (TSJ) without causing casualties, the security forces inspected the aircraft, found at Osma on the coast, 85 km Of Bogotá.

The pilot, Oscar Pérez, a 36-year-old police officer, also actor of an action film, “Mort suspendue” (2015), was still untraceable.

Denouncing a “terrorist attack” and a coup attempt, Socialist President Nicolas Maduro put the armed forces on alert.

The Interior Ministry issued an international arrest warrant, through Interpol, against the driver he accuses of having links with the American CIA.

On Wednesday, members of the opposition and several analysts questioned the veracity and motivation of the attack, saying it could be a government-backed coup.

The opposition, the majority in the Parliament, assured that it had nothing to do with the incident: “It is not the way of acting of the coalition because we demand a democratic change in a peaceful way”, said the deputy Juan Guaido, on behalf of the coalition of the Table for Democratic Unity (MUD).

The atypical profile of the pilot, appeared face uncovered and accompanied by four men masked in a video on the Internet, intrigues.

According to his friend Oscar Rivas, a director of one of the films he played, he was greatly affected by the murder of his brother less than two weeks ago, stabbed at his home to steal his laptop.

“It was the last straw that caused the vase to overflow so that it behaves like that,” he said on Onda La Superstacion radio.

In a country ravaged by crime, the pilot and comedian also sent his three young children to live in Mexico after an attempt to kidnap one of them last year, he said.

And if the images broadcast on social networks show the helicopter over Caracas, it is not clear whether he is actually launching grenades on the Supreme Court. We just hear detonations in the distance.

Conducted by TSJ President Maikel Moreno and Foreign Minister Samuel Moncada, a group of diplomats traveled Thursday to observe the impact areas of the grenades, with Moreno’s mission to “propagate this truth”: “In Venezuela there has been a terrorist attack and it must be condemned.”

– Crispation of the authorities –

“Despite the conspiracy theories, the unusual incident … seems to respond to an individual motivation, more than a conspiracy of the government or a coordinated attempt with other military or security actors,” said Thursday Risa Grais-Targow, Director of Latin America, Eurasia.

The episode comes as demonstrations demanding the departure of President Maduro since early April “are increasingly violent and test the loyalties within the security apparatus,” she observes.

According to the prosecution, the results of the demonstrations stood on Thursday at 82 deaths.

Several dozen demonstrators were arrested on Thursday at a new demonstration in Caracas, dispersed by tear gas and small shotgun rifles, according to opposition MP Juan Guaido.

The episode also takes place at a time of growing tension in the Chavist camp, which accuses the opposition of preparing a coup with the support of the United States.

On Tuesday, Nicolas Maduro warned US President Donald Trump that if Venezuela “plunged into chaos and violence, we would go to battle,” he said. And “that which could not be done thanks to the vote, we will do it with the arms”.

The presidential camp is also furious with the criticism of the dissident chavist Luisa Ortega, attorney general of the Nation.

In this country where the ultra-petroleum-dependent economy has collapsed, prosecutor Ortega is the only critical voice in the presidential camp.

The authorities announced that Ms. Ortega would appear before the TSJ on Tuesday, forbidding her to leave the country and freezing her accounts and assets.

The hearing will decide whether the prosecutor, whose Chavez member has asked the JTS to evaluate “mental health”, can be brought to justice.

On Wednesday, Ortega accused President Maduro of imposing “state terrorism”.