Venezuela's president suspects U.S. Involvement in prosecutor's killing

President Hugo Chavez's spokesman on Friday accused "terrorists" training in Florida of being behind the assassination of a top prosecutor who intended to try backers of Venezuela's 2002 coup. Danilo Anderson was killed by two explosions that tore through his SUV as he was driving in the capital just before midnight Thursday. The killing shook this oil-rich South American country and raised the spectre of further violence. As authorities called for calm, hundreds of mourners, some weeping and others angrily shouting "Justice!", watched while a coffin bearing his body was brought into the attorney general's office building in Caracas. Information Minister Andres Izarra said the assassination of Anderson - known among Venezuelans as the "super prosecutor" - was clearly aimed at derailing his investigations and prosecutions of those who supported the coup, in which 19 people were killed and almost 300 wounded. Izarra blamed Venezuelan exiles in Florida, echoing Chavez's earlier accusations that Cuban and Venezuelan "terrorists" were training in Florida to execute him and were using the media to call for his removal. "We want the government of the United States to explain how it is that these terrorist groups that act with total freedom in Florida ... make these statements through the media under the government's nose," Izarra said. The U.S. Embassy did not immediately return calls seeking comment. While the United States remains Venezuela's main buyer of oil, relations between the two administrations have been testy.[more]

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