Venezuela’s government said on Monday an Opposition member accused of taking part in a failed drone attack on President Nicolas Maduro killed himself while in custody, but the opposition claimed he had been murdered.
Attorney General Tarek William Saab told state television VTV that Fernando Alban, who was in pretrial detention at the headquarters of the intelligence service, asked to go to the restroom and threw himself from a tenth-floor window.
Alban, a city council member from Caracas, was among at least 15 people arrested and charged for alleged participation in the August 4 incident involving two drones. Mr. Maduro was seen reacting on live television to an off-camera explosion while he addressed a military parade in Caracas. A second explosion was heard and then the troops were seen breaking formation and scattering in panic.
Mr. Maduro said the blasts were from explosives-laden drones sent to assassinate him, though Opposition figures accuse the President of fabricating the incident to step up repression in his country.
Alban’s First Justice party blamed the government. “We hold Maduro and his regime of torture responsible,” it said in a statement.