US charges Venezuelan President of “narco-terrorism”

Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and other senior officials have been charged with “narco-terrorism” by the US. 

They have been accused of flooding the US with cocaine and using drugs as a weapon to target the health of Americans.

Attorney General William Barr has announced the charges. A $15m reward is being offered for anyone who provides information leading to Mr. Maduro’s arrest.

The US will also increase tensions between the two nations.

The US has long accused the Venezuelan President of governing a corrupt regime.

It backs the opposition leader Juan Guaidó, who declared himself interim president last year.

The new charges reflect an escalation in the longstanding US pressure campaign on Mr. Maduro, which also includes sweeping sanctions on Venezuela’s oil industry.

The US has charged more than a dozen top Venezuelan officials, including the president, the defense minister, and the Supreme Court’s chief justice. 

The US state department said, “The Venezuelan people deserve a transparent, responsible, representative government that serves the needs of the people – and that does not…. engage in illicit narcotics trafficking,”

The charges against Mr. Maduro and 14 members of his inner circle include narco-terrorism, drug trafficking, money laundering, and corruption.

Mr. Barr, in a news conference, accused Mr. Maduro of conspiring with a faction of the Colombian Farc rebel group “to flood the United States with cocaine” and “devastate American communities”.

“While the Venezuelan people suffer, this cabal… lines their pockets,”

Mr. Barr said the Colombian rebels had “obtained the support of the Maduro regime, who is allowing them to use Venezuela as a haven from which they can continue to conduct their cocaine trafficking”.

US Attorney Geoffrey Berman said, “Maduro very deliberately deployed cocaine as a weapon… to undermine the health and wellbeing of our nation,”

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