ivan Simonovis venezuela cia
© CNN EspanolThe ex-commissar of the Caracas Metropolitan Police, Ivan Simonovis met with Elliott Abrams June 27, 2019
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro described the former adviser Iván Simonovis as a murderer and was blamed for the violence that occurred during the 2002 coup against Hugo Chavez.

Maduro said the former adviser had always been an agent of the US Central Intelligence Agency.

"The assassin [Ivan] Simonovis was received as a hero in Washington, as a CIA agent who has been his whole life, he is a murderer, a criminal, a murderous murderer [...]," Maduro said.

Simonovis was under house arrest, from which he escaped on 16 May last. The former aide spoke about the escape plan to escape his home, where he served the prison sentence.

However, on June 26, Venezuelan Minister of Communication and Information Jorge Rodríguez denied the release and assured that opposition leader Juan Guaidó had paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to release him.

Simonovis, who is currently in the United States, has been sentenced to 30 years in prison for complicity in the execution of a murdered felony.

During the protests and the 2002 coup against then-President Hugo Chávez (1998-2013), Simonovis was a public security adviser to the Caracas City Hall and was blamed for the violence that took place in the capital during the troubled period.

Days ago, the Venezuelan government dismantled a military plan to carry out a coup d'état, which was to release General Raul Isaías Baduel, detained since 2009, and proclaim him as president, Communications Minister Jorge Rodríguez revealed on Wednesday.

"First lieutenant Carlos Lozada Saavedra, known as Uncle (...), was recruited to carry out assault activities at the Ayala Battalion's battalion of the Bolivar Battalion, taking the Francisco de Miranda Military Base in La Carlota, taking the Sebin (Bolivarian Intelligence Agency) to Baduel and take him... to facilities of the Venezolana de Televisión network and from there to proclaim Baduel as president of Venezuela," said the official of the Miraflores Palace (seat of government).

The minister, also vice president of Communication, Culture and Tourism, showed a video with the confession of the first lieutenant, in which he guarantees that the military coup was taking place with the supposed support of Israeli military and North American .

The plan, presented Rodríguez, also planned to assassinate Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, his wife Cilia Flores, and the president of the National Constituent Assembly, Diosdado Cabello.

In addition, on the radar of the coup plotters were the kidnapping of Freddy Bernal, the director of Sebin, Gustavo González López, and the Minister of Justice, Interior and Peace, Nestor Reverol.

"The group called Ulysses had a responsibility to capture Chief-General Gustavo González López, the director of Sebin and provide security to Lander," he said, adding that "Lander is also a pseudonym that Mr. Juan Guaidó uses" in reference to the self-proclaimed interim president, recognized by the United States.

As for the group called Lander, he stressed that the function was to stop Reverol, take the General Directorate of Military Intelligence (Dgcim) and "hand it to Guaidó," whom Baduel called the movement's head.