Seventeen people have been arrested and charged in a coup attempt by Venezuela opposition leader Juan Guaido on April 30, Venezuelan authorities said.
Venezuela’s Prosecutor General Tarek William Saab said that 34 people were being investigated for the failed coup d’etat.
He further praised the Ministry’s leading role in maintaining “democratic stability and preserve peace”
An apparently carefully planned attempt by Venezuela opposition leader Guaido to demonstrate growing military support disintegrated into rioting as palls of black smoke rose over eastern Caracas on April 30 and continued on for two days.
Juan Guaido claimed the move was the “beginning of the end” of President Nicolas Maduro’s regime, and that there was “no turning back”.
Thousands of opposition supporters flocked onto a highway near the base of the capital.
Some of the protesters, amid the confusion, chanted, “Today is the day Maduro resigns. Today is the day all the country’s drug dealers resign. Today we have a Venezuela. Today we have a nation”.
Saab had earlier said that the coup was stirred by opposition leaders Leopoldo Lopez and Juan Guaido while backed by renegade soldiers.
In the case of a failed assassination attempt against President Nicolas Maduro in August 2018, 38 people were charged and 31 of them were imprisoned.