Andrés Martínez Adasme, 32, and José María Basoa Valdovinos, 35, the two Spaniards arrested in Venezuela accused of being agents of the National Intelligence Center (CNI) and part of a conspiracy to overthrow the government of Nicolás Maduro, are two residents of Bilbao with no connection to the secret service, who were in the Caribbean country as tourists.
This is what their family claims, who on the 9th reported their disappearance to the Ertzaintza. Through social networks, they asked for help to locate them, explaining that they travelled from Madrid to Caracas (Venezuela) on the 17th of August and rented a car that they were supposed to return on the 5th of September. On the 2nd of September they communicated for the last time with their relatives, who since then had no news of their whereabouts.
The Basque Government is in contact with the families of both to “give them support” and make available to them “everything they may need or require”, while, through the Foreign Action area of the autonomous executive, the diplomatic channel is kept open to keep abreast of their situation, reports Efe. The Spanish Embassy in Caracas sent a verbal note to the Government of Venezuela on Saturday “requesting access to the detainees, in order to verify their identities and nationality and, if verified, to know exactly what they are accused of and so that they can receive all the necessary assistance”.
The family of the two detainees is not the only one to deny that they had any connection with the secret service. Sources from La Moncloa denied on Saturday night the connection with the CNI that the Venezuelan Minister of the Interior, Diosdado Cabello, attributed to them in a press conference, and the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs was even more forceful this Sunday through a statement in which it denied any Spanish involvement in this alleged plot: “Spain denies and rejects any insinuation of being involved in a political operation in Venezuela. The Government has confirmed that the detainees do not form part of the CNI or any other state body. Spain defends a democratic and peaceful solution to the situation in Venezuela.”
Anticipating this denial, Cabello said in his press conference: “Spain will respond that it is a lie. They can say what they want, their agents are confessing.” The Venezuelan minister did not limit the alleged Spanish involvement to the two detainees, but blamed the Spanish intelligence service for collaborating with a destabilizing operation through violent acts designed by the CIA. “The CNI is promoting the recruitment of terrorists to come to Venezuela,” he said. “Spain is neck-deep in the operation against Venezuela,” he added.
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Asked whether his country should break relations with Spain – as proposed by the president of the National Assembly, controlled by Chavez, Jorge Rodriguez – the Venezuelan Minister of the Interior responded: “We should ask ourselves how we have relations with a government that aspires to overthrow us.” Considered a hawk of the regime, Cabello has been removed from the Venezuelan government in recent years, but Maduro has brought him back as Minister of Internal Affairs, Justice and Peace in the Cabinet formed on August 27, after the elections that, according to all available data, he lost to the opposition.
The arrest of the two Spaniards occurs in the midst of a diplomatic crisis between the two countries. The Venezuelan foreign minister, Yván Gil, called his country’s ambassador in Madrid for consultations and summoned the Spanish ambassador in Caracas to protest against the alleged “interventionist actions” of the Spanish government, after the Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, described the Chavista regime as a “dictatorship.” In the background of the crisis is the asylum in Spain of the opposition candidate in the elections of July 28, Edmundo González Urrutia, who arrived in Madrid last Sunday on a Spanish Air Force plane, and the decision of the Congress of Deputies that, at the initiative of the PP, recognized him as the winner of the elections and president-elect.
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