The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign
Assets Control imposed sanctions on eight current or former members
of the Venezuela’s Supreme Court Thursday, in its ongoing attacks
on the Bolivarian nation.
Senator Marco Rubio stood on the Senate floor Thursday
and lambasted the eight judges for aiding and abetting Venezuela’s
democratically-elected President Nicolas Maduro for supposedly
“murdering” protesters amid weeks of opposition-spurred violent
demonstrations. The Republican senator from Florida also accused the
government of carrying out a “coup.”
The
Supreme Court justices added to the sanctions blacklist were Supreme
Court President Maikel Moreno, Calixto Ortega, Arcadio Delgado,
Federico Fuenmayor, Carmen Zuleta, Lourdes Suarez Anderson, and Juan
Jose Mendoza. Rubio emphasized that these officials should be
“punished for what they’ve done.”
On April 1, Venezuela’s Supreme Court reversed an
earlier ruling that verified its responsibilities to resolve matters
generally under the purview of the National Assembly, which has been
declared in contempt for more than one year after confirming three
lawmakers whose election was overturned due to fraud claims. The
decision, widely misrepresented in international media, stoked
already high-running tensions in the country and was used by
opposition forces as a pretext for the violent street demonstrations
that have been taking place for seven weeks.
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