Relatives of Venezuelan leader arrested on drug charges

Cilia Flores (L), whose nephews were arrested in Haiti in Wednesday and accused by us officials of smuggling 800 kilos of cocaine into the USA, walks with her husband Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro (C).

The two travelled to Saudi Arabia for a summit this week and she was expected to be with the president for a speech to the UN Human Rights Council at a meeting in Geneva called at Venezuela’s request on Thursday.

“The Fatherland will continue on its path”, Maduro wrote, “neither attacks, nor imperial ambushes, will be a match against the People of the Liberators, we have only one destiny…to win”.

Officials at Venezuela’s Information Ministry and Foreign Ministry declined to comment when contacted by Bloomberg News.

The Council convened the special session to hear from President Maduro about the human rights situation Venezuela, which was just recently re-elected to serve on the 47-member body.

As he frequently does, Maduro invoked his late predecessor and mentor, “our commander Hugo Chavez, our magnificent leader of all of humanity in this century”.

According to a five-page federal indictment released on Thursday, 29-year-old Efraín Antonio Campo Flores and 30-year-old Franqui Francisco Flores de Freitas took part in a conspiracy to bring 5 kilograms of cocaine into the country.

The US State Department says more than half of the cocaine produced in neighboring Colombia moves through Venezuela towards Europe and the United States.

As reported by Spain’s ABC, this is not the first time sons of Flores and Maduro have been linked to drug trafficking.

The arrest of the two men is likely to exacerbate already tense relations between the US government and the socialist Venezuelan administration led by President Nicolas Maduro.

Venezuelan authorities have previously dismissed allegations of involvement in the drug trade as smears created to undermine the leftist government in Caracas.

Numerous Venezuelan officials, including an ex-defense minister and chief of military intelligence, face sanctions or trafficking charges in the USA.

“Opposition politicians have been arbitrarily arrested, then prosecuted and convicted on politically motivated charges, and barred from running for office in the legislative elections scheduled for December”, Human Rights Watch added in a statement.

Venezuela’s more moderate opposition coalition called on Venezuela’s National Assembly to immediately investigate the situation. The accusations come at a time of economic and political crisis in Venezuela.

Venezuela has for years clashed with the OAS, accusing the organization of being a front for US interests and meddling in its internal affairs. “He will blame the arrests on USA imperialism and see them as an attempt to undermine his government”.