A top Venezuelan government official has confirmed that the uncle of opposition leader Juan Guaidó is being held on suspicion of smuggling “dangerous material” into the country.
Juan José Márquez was travelling with Mr Guaidó from Lisbon to Caracas by plane and vanished on Tuesday after being stopped by tax agency personnel. Mr Guaidó called it a “cowardly move”.
The official did not say how Mr Márquez would have managed to smuggle the items onto an international flight. Mr Márquez is not the first person with links to Mr Guaidó to be arrested.
His chief of staff, Roberto Marrero, was detained last year and remains in prison.
Diosdado Cabello, widely considered the second most powerful man in President Nicolás Maduro’s government, spoke of Mr Márquez’s arrest on his weekly TV programme.
Mr Cabello showed photos of a bulletproof vest and what he said was explosive material which Mr Márquez had allegedly tried to smuggle into Venezuela.
Source: Fiilafmonline/BBC
