Venezuela's Rodriguez: Evidence Links Julio Borges to Assassination Attempt

Venezuelan Communications Minister, Jorge Rodriguez, revealed more information linking former legislator, Julio Borges, to the failed assassination attempt against president Nicolas Maduro Friday.

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The package of evidence included a taped confession of the recently captured former legislator, Juan Requesens, in which he confirms the testimony of one of the plotters, Juan Carlos Monasterios (alias Bond), had stated previously: that they acted on the command of Julio Borges.

“I was contacted by Borges, who asked me a favor to get someone to pass from Venezuela to Colombia; it was Monasterios,” Requesens said in the video.

After playing the video, Rodriguez challenged Borges saying: "What will you say now? That Requesens is lying? That Monasterios is lying? You know what you did." 

"It is the key accomplice, Juan Requesens, who confesses his complicity in the assassination attempt, and at the same time he confesses he did it on the orders of Julio Borges," Rodriguez told the press conference.

Rodriguez also announced Venezuela had requested an Interpol red alert for the capture and extradition of Borges. 

"It is time for the international media to drop the quotation marks and the 'alleged' when covering the attack against Venezuela," Rodriguez argued while highlighting media bias against the Venezuelan government. 

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Rodriguez also explained the assassination attempt failed because the presidential security had disabled wifi signal around the event and installed signal disrupters. "The drone lost its signal, that's why the attack failed," Rodriguez said, highlighting the "remarkable" job by presidential security did. 

On Thursday, Venezuelan authorities met with an advisor to the Colombian embassy in Caracas to request Borges' extradition. Rodriguez also explained that the diplomatic mechanisms, which exists between Venezuela, Colombia and the United States and called on the U.S., "who had affirmed they would not tolerate a terrorist attack," to deport the intellectual and material authors of the attack against the state of Venezuela. 

"There are no good and bad terrorists, they are bad everywhere in the world," Rodriguez told representatives of the local and international media several times. 

Other evidence shown to the media includes the memory of the tablets used to control the two drones used in the attack. The data shows the drones had flown over the Atlanta estate, in the Colombian department of Norte de Santander, providing proof of the Venezuelan government's statements that the attackers were trained in Colombian territory.   

"They trained in Colombia; they had difficulties in smuggling the drones. That is why Requesens helped them. He had the contact on the border bridge," Rodriguez explained.

Rodriguez also decried the actions of Colombian immigration officials in allowing those involved to move between the two countries and said this should prompt an investigation by the country's government. 

 "The Republic of Venezuela has the right to defend its peace," Rodriguez concluded.