Magaly Janeth Moreno Vega AKA "La Perla", wanted by Interpol and Colombia as a key fugitive leader of the outlawed AUC paramilitary network, was arrested by Venezuelan authorities in Maracaibo. There was no immediate word on whether Venezuela would extradite. Upon her arrest, Justice Minister Tareck El Aissami again accused Colombia's government of supporting the illegal paramilitaries [2] and using them to subvert Venezuela. El Aissami, speaking on state television, accused Colombian President Alvaro Uribe of "institutional and moral decay" for his government's ties to paramilitary groups that "attack our people and threaten peace and order." (LAT [3], Nov. 23)
Meanwhile, in comments sure to reopen the flap about anti-Semitism in Venezuela [4], President Hugo Chávez [5] praised the notorious international terrorist of Venezuelan birth, Ilich Ramirez Sánchez AKA "Carlos the Jackal" [6], calling him a "revolutionary fighter" and asserting that his lifetime imprisonment in France for a wave of deadly attacks across Europe was unfair. Chávez hailed Carlos the Jackal as "one of the great fighters of the Palestinian Liberation Organization," denying he was a terrorist. "I defend him," he said during a speech Nov. 21. "It doesn’t matter to me what they say tomorrow in Europe." (London Times [7], Nov, 23)
See our last post on Venezuela and Colombia [8].
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