Nicolás Maduro's Bodyguard, Lt. Marco Corte, Shot To Death In Venezuela

A bodyguard of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro has been shot to death while driving along a Caracas highway on Sunday, according to the Venezuelan Public Ministry.

Local media is reporting that the victim is 29-year-old Lt. Marco Antonio Cortez, who was traveling on the Valle-Coche highway with his wife while returning from a party. He was fired at from unknown gunmen in another car; his wife was unharmed. Cortez was taken to the Hospital Militar, according to the official announcement, but he had no vital signs of life. Cortez was experienced in presidential security, as he had been working in the field for six years and was a member of the "security rings" that protected late President Hugo Chávez.

The Venezuelan government has had a tumultuous year as citizens started rallying on Feb. 12, 2014, on the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Victoria, to protest Maduro's government after he succeeded Hugo Chávez. The initial protests -- led by the leaders of the Venezuelan opposition María Corina Machado and Leopoldo López -- were followed by a large, city-wide protest on Saturday, Feb. 15.

As such, it would not be far-fetched to think Cortez could have been a victim of politics, but El Universal has reported that he was the victim of an attempt vehicle robbery. Cortez's murder can be paralleled to the death of former Miss Venezuela and Telemundo actress Mónica Spear, who was shot to death in attempted robbery on the Puerto Cabello-Valencia highway. Spear and her ex-husband, Thomas Henry Berry, were killed last year after they resisted their assailants.

Such random acts of violence are not unusual in the South American nation; a 2010 UN report cites that Venezuela ranks as one of the top four murderous nation in the world with a murder rate of 39 per 100,000 people, according to the Venezuelan government. That said, it should be noted that a nongovernment agency, the Venezuelan Violence Observatory, claims that the murder rate cited by the government are grossly downplayed. The agency reports that there were 24,763 murders last year, which would put the murder rate at 79 per 100,000 people.