Maria Corina Machado will Face Charges over Alleged Plot to Assassinate Venezuela’s Maduro

Hard-line Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado will be charged for her presumed link to an alleged plot to assassinate Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro.

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Mérida, 27th November 2014 (Venezuelanalysis.com) – Hard-line Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado will be charged for her presumed link to an alleged plot to assassinate Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro.

In a letter that Machado published on her twitter account yesterday, the Attorney General’s office solicited her presence next 3 December to formally charge her. The opposition figure and former parliamentarian is one of several people suspected of having a role in the alleged plot, with six other figures linked to the opposition having arrests warrants out against them.

Details of the alleged plot were publicly announced by pro-government figures in May this year which state prosecutors have since been investigating. One email intercepted by intelligence services and allegedly sent from Machado’s account stated, “I believe the time has come to join forces, make the necessary calls, and obtain the financing to annihilate Maduro… and the rest will come falling down”.

Machado has rejected the accusations against her as “infamy”, and claimed that the judicial action was a response to her demand that the leading rectors of the National Electoral Council resign.

The opposition leader was expulsed as a parliamentarian from the Venezuelan National Assembly in March by the pro-government majority after she planned to speak as an honorary representative of Panama in a meeting of the Organisation of American States (OAS).

A long time opponent of the Bolivarian government and member of one of the country’s most influential families, Machado was a leader of the movement of opposition protests and street barricades named “The Exit” which brought several Venezuelan cities to a halt from February to May this year.

The protests, barricades and clashes with security forces left 43 dead and around 900 wounded, including National Guard officers and civilians from both sides.