The private US military firm behind the bungled coup in Venezuela was kept in the dark by Juan Guaido as he “misled” the operation and made poor decisions, a captured ex-US soldier said during interrogation.
Juan Guaido, the Washington-backed self-proclaimed ‘interim president’ of Venezuela, muddied the waters during the failed mission supposedly aimed at ousting President Nicolas Maduro. That’s according to Luke Denman, one of the two former US Green Berets accused of participating in the failed plot, who has shed more light on the mission in a new interrogation tape.
Guaido, thought to have hired Florida-based private military firm Silvercorp USA to spearhead his coup plans, “misled quite a few people,” the American captive could be heard saying in the video, aired by Venezuelan state TV.
Previous interrogation tapes and media leaks indicate the opposition leader was in touch with Jordan Goudreau, a US special forces veteran and head of Silvercorp. Venezuelan investigators earlier revealed that Goudreau had met Guaido at the White House during Guaido’s trip to the US.
He “didn’t have any reason not to trust Guaido,” Denman said before unloading on the ‘interim president’. “I believe if anybody has made an incorrect decision, it’s Mr. Guaido,” the former Green Beret stated without elaborating.
Denman and another American, Airan Berry, said they were tasked with training Venezuelan émigrés in neighboring Colombia ahead of their invasion. Embedded with other guerillas, they were then to sneak into Caracas, kidnap Maduro, and secure an airfield on Venezuelan soil to “put [him]on a plane.”
They landed on a resort coast in Venezuela earlier this month, apparently hoping for a rendezvous with local anti-government forces. However, the small invading group was met with heavy resistance, with local security forces killing most of the intruders and capturing their hardware.
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