Venezuela News: National Assembly President Diosdado Cabello Says US Revoked His Visa

Venezuelan national assembly president Diosdado Cabello said on Wednesday during an event to honor five Cuban convicted in the US of espionage that the United States government had revoked his visa. Cabello said it had been canceled after a former Venezuelan air force official living in Miami-Dade county in Florida accused him of funneling money to Osama bin Laden. “He filed an accusation saying that he had taken me to India and that I had given a million dollars to Osama bin Laden. There it is, then, that’s the craziness of these people, and they accepted his accusation there,” he said.

US officials have not commented on the matter. Cabello’s claims would make him the first high-level Venezuelan official to be sanctioned by the US in relation to violence against opposition protestors. The BBC notes that the national assembly head also criticized the United States of rejecting Venezuela’s attempts to normalize relations by ignoring a February request from president Nicolás Maduro to accept a newly named ambassador. “The arrogant response from the empire is that they’re concerned for the destiny of Venezuela and that they don’t accept our ambassador in an attempt to normalize relations with the United States,” Cabello said on Wednesday.

Secretary of State John Kerry repeated earlier expressions of concern in remarks on Wednesday in which he lamented the “deteriorating situation” in Venezuela, according to AFP. Kerry said at a conference on the Americas in the nation’s capital that opposition demonstrators had “legitimate grievances.” His remarks came days after Human Rights Watch announced the results of an investigation concluding that Venezuelan security forces engaged in systematic human-rights violations of which many top-level officials in the attorney general’s office and judiciary were informed.