<h6><strong>Eduardo González</strong></h6> <h4><strong>The Venezuelan authorities have confirmed this Monday the identity of the two Spaniards arrested in the country for an alleged plot against President Nicolás Maduro and the charges against them, according to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, on Monday.</strong></h4> According to his own statement to Catalunya Ràdio, the minister received official confirmation at the end of last week of the arrest of the Bilbao natives Andrés Martínez Adasme, 32, and José María Basoa Valdovinos, 35, shortly after requesting it in person in New York from the Venezuelan vice-chancellor, Rander Peña, coinciding with the presence of both (and the Venezuelan chancellor, Yván Gil) at the High Level Week of the United Nations. The authorities also informed Albares of the charges against the two Spaniards, but he has not given further details on the matter, arguing that his Ministry must “work calmly” and that the detainees “also have the right to privacy”. In any case, he reiterated that the two Spaniards “have nothing to do with any Spanish public body, much less with the CNI”. On September 14, Venezuelan Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello announced the arrest of the two Spanish citizens, whom he linked to a plot orchestrated by the opposition to assassinate Nicolás Maduro and other Venezuelan leaders. According to Cabello, the two detainees are linked to the Spanish National Intelligence Center (CNI), but the Spanish government has rejected this accusation and has assured that they do not belong to any public body. Once the identities and charges have been confirmed, Albares continued in the interview with Catalunya Ràdio, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will exercise “diplomatic and consular protection” of José María Basoa Valdovinos and Andrés Martínez Adasme, “so that these two compatriots unjustly detained in Venezuela can return where they always had to be, which is with their families.” According to Albares, the latest information provided by the Venezuelan authorities has already been transmitted in “detail” to the families of the detainees and to the Basque lehendakari, Imanol Pradales, and the next step is to provide the necessary consular and diplomatic protection so that they are “back as soon as possible.” The minister also recalled that, since he has held office, this “is not the first time” that he has had to defend Spaniards detained in other countries, as occurred with the aid worker Juana Ruiz, detained in Israel, or with Santiago Sánchez Cogedor and Ana Baneira, detained in Iran. “In all these cases everything was happily resolved and I, of course, will spare no effort to ensure that this situation is exactly the same as soon as possible,” he added. <h5><strong>PP denounces the “complicit silence” of the Government</strong></h5> On the other hand, the People´s Party has denounced the “complicit silence” of the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, and the rest of the Executive in the face of the words spoken this weekend by Nicolás Maduro, in which he called the leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, a “thief linked to drug trafficking”, and the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, a “Falangist” and “colonialist fascist”. “The dictator Maduro insults and slanders us in the face of the complicit silence of Sánchez and his ministers. So brave with the dead dictators and so submissive with the living,” declared the general secretary of the People's Party, Cuca Gamarra through the social network X. “Does anyone know at what time Pedro Sánchez condemns Maduro's insults and attacks on Feijóo and Ayuso? "Just to know..." wrote the PP spokesman in Congress, Miguel Tellado, on the same network.
