Maduro responds to accusations of drug terrorism –
(CNN Spanish) – -Idependence and socialist homeland, my commander in chief, good afternoon – greeted Clíver Alcalá.
“We will live and win, Mr. General Cliver Alcalá,” replied President Hugo Chávez.
-I inform you that you are present military civic parade of February 4, 2012 12,400 compatriots socialists, revolutionaries, anti-imperialists, Chavistas, equipped with high-tech war equipment …
Retired General of the Venezuelan Army Clíver Alcalá at a press conference in Caracas on July 18, 2016. File image. (Credit: JUAN BARRETO / AFP via Getty Images)
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The applause echoed in the tribune where Chávez was. It was the last time that the seriously ill president attended the reminder event of the military coup that he had starred in 1992, when he tried to overthrow then-President Carlos Andrés Pérez.
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It was also the most remembered intervention of Alcalá as an active officer, when he commanded the IV Armored Division, the most powerful unit of the Venezuelan Army.
In a later report, the non-governmental organization Citizen Control stated that those words, spoken over a war tank, were “one of the public expressions of propaganda, militancy or proselytizing. political carried out by members of the Military High Command in 2012 ”.
Citizen Control then cited the articles of the Venezuelan Constitution that specified the apolitical nature of the Bolivarian National Armed Force.
But that was more than eight years ago.
Today Alcalá is faced with the leadership that replaced Chávez in power and manifests himself as one of his most bitter adversaries.
However, fate has reunited him with his former comrades in the same court case.
The questioned president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, and Alcalá were accused on Thursday in by a court of the southern district of New York on four counts: narcoterrorist conspiracy, conspiracy to import cocaine, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive mechanisms.
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Both the Venezuelan government and the retired military have rejected the accusations.
In a statement, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza called the charges “miserable, vulgar and unfounded.”
Alcalá Cordones told CNN that he is not afraid of being prosecuted for drug trafficking allegations. “I have done nothing wrong and I am sure this is all a mistake,” he added.
Maduro appeared on Venezuelan public television hours after the Justice Department, after making the accusations public, offered US $ 15 million for information leading to his capture or conviction.
On his Twitter account, Maduro wrote: