Venezuela agents arrest Caracas mayor

Venezuelan intelligence agents have arrested the opposition leader and Caracas metropolitan mayor Antonio Ledezma, witnesses said, after accusations he was involved in a coup attempt against President Nicolas Maduro.

The agents took him from his office in the banking district of Caracas without giving a reason, said witnesses including an opposition legislator and Ledezma’s wife.

“I just saw how they took Ledezma out of his office as if he were a dog,” said opposition legislator Ismael Garcia. “They broke down the doors without an arrest warrant.”

Reports of the arrest set off protests around the city, where people spontaneously banged pots from their windows or tapped rhythms on their car horns amid rush hour traffic. Hundreds gathered in front of the headquarters of the intelligence service police to vent their anger.

Ledezma won election in 2008, beating a member of the socialist party led by the late President Hugo Chavez.

The ruling party subsequently transferred nearly all of Ledezma’s powers, including control of police and schools, to a newly created government entity. Ledezma responded by accusing the government of marginalizing elected officials and staged a hunger strike that drew international attention.

His arrest on Thursday adds to tensions one year after the start of three months of opposition demonstrations demanding the resignation of Maduro, whose popularity rating has tumbled amid a recession and shortages of food and consumer goods.

Violence around the 2014 protests left dozens dead.

The government in recent days had cited an opposition document signed by Ledezma, a veteran opposition leader, that called for a “national transition” as evidence he was involved in a coup attempt.

Socialist party official Diosdado Cabello last week said Ledezma plotted in 2014 to kill jailed opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez in order to stir up unrest that opposition leaders would use to launch a coup.

Maduro frequently denounces alleged coup plots by opposition leaders, usually without presenting concrete evidence. His predecessor, Hugo Chávez, survived a brief coup in 2002 amid protests supported by Ledezma as well as other opposition leaders.

The vice-president’s office, which oversees Sebin, the intelligence service, did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Ledezma. Maduro spoke on live TV on Thursday evening but did not mention it.

Colombian news station NTN24 showed a video of what it called the detention of Ledezma. The images showed nearly a dozen troops clad in flak jackets and camouflage uniforms ushering him toward an elevator.

Reuters could not independently confirm the video.

Venezuela has jailed a number of opposition leaders during the last year including Lopez, who helped spearhead the 2014 opposition protests, and Daniel Ceballos, former mayor of the border city of San Cristobal.

Supporters call them political prisoners who are being persecuted for exercising their right to protest. Maduro’s sympathisers call them saboteurs seeking to destabilise the government with US help.

Lopez’s supporters said he was being forcibly moved from the Ramo Verde prison outside Caracas. He was put in a punishment cell in recent days, they said, following a media interview he gave from a phone inside.

Reuters and the Associated Press contributed to this report