Venezuela suspends for three months the operations of the airline in which Guaidó traveled

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The Minister of Transport of the Government of Nicolás Maduro, Hipólito Abreu, sanctioned the Portuguese airline TAP in which Juan Guaidó returned last Tuesday, after his international tour. “Due to the serious irregularities committed on flight TP173 and in compliance with the national civil aviation regulations, the operations of the TAP airline to our territory are suspended for 90 days, as a precautionary measure in order to protect Venezuela's operational safety,” said the official.

The minister said that TAP Air Portugal incurred violations of international aeronautical regulations, allowing the boarding of Guaidó, recognized as interim president for 60 countries (Portugal included), with a false identification. According to his version, Guaidó registered as Antonio Márquez, using his third name and his middle name. Abreu added to the irregularities that the aircraft did not possess the CS-TKS equipment fumigation certificate and that “unauthorized materials were found on the plane”.

The arrival of Guaidó in Venezuela last Tuesday became a new struggle for the opposition leader. His identity document was taken away at the migration ticket office of the Maiquetía airport, he was beaten and booed by Maduro followers - who also attacked and injured at least 10 journalists - and his uncle, Juan José Márquez, 54, who accompanied him on the flight, was arrested. Several hours after his disappearance in the hands of police officers, it was learned that he was in the hands of the Directorate of Military Counterintelligence and that the government accuses him of having transported "tactical flashlights" with "explosive chemicals in the battery compartment , presumably C4 ", a bulletproof vest and a portable memory in which there were documents with" plans for terrorist attacks, written in English ", according to the points made by the number two of the Chavismo, Diosdado Cabello, in his television program.

To the denunciations, the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry demanded that the Portuguese government open an investigation. And Cabello accused Portugal's ambassador to Venezuela, Carlos Nuno Almeida of Sousa Amaro, of moving to the Maiquetia airport on Tuesday to receive Guaidó, as did other European diplomats. But the Portuguese Foreign Minister, Augusto Santos Silva, said the accusations "make no sense" and added that the detention of Guaido's uncle was "an attempt to intimidate" the Venezuelan opposition.

The suspension of TAP further reduces the map of air connections in Venezuela. Only eight foreign airlines maintain operations in the country and five of them have flights to Europe. After the sanctions of the United States, the South American country was left without direct dispatches to the north of the continent