Venezuela's president suspects U.S. Involvement in prosecutor's killing
/President Hugo Chavez's spokesman on Friday accused "terrorists"
training in Florida of being behind the assassination of a top
prosecutor who intended to try backers of Venezuela's 2002 coup. Danilo
Anderson was killed by two explosions that tore through his SUV as he
was driving in the capital just before midnight Thursday. The killing
shook this oil-rich South American country and raised the spectre of
further violence. As authorities called for calm, hundreds of mourners,
some weeping and others angrily shouting "Justice!", watched while a
coffin bearing his body was brought into the attorney general's office
building in Caracas. Information Minister Andres Izarra said the
assassination of Anderson - known among Venezuelans as the "super
prosecutor" - was clearly aimed at derailing his investigations and
prosecutions of those who supported the coup, in which 19 people were
killed and almost 300 wounded. Izarra blamed Venezuelan exiles in
Florida, echoing Chavez's earlier accusations that Cuban and Venezuelan
"terrorists" were training in Florida to execute him and were using the
media to call for his removal. "We want the government of the United
States to explain how it is that these terrorist groups that act with
total freedom in Florida ... make these statements through the media
under the government's nose," Izarra said. The U.S. Embassy did not
immediately return calls seeking comment. While the United States
remains Venezuela's main buyer of oil, relations between the two
administrations have been testy.[more]
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