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CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — A rogue Venezuelan cop who staged an attack earlier this year on two government buildings in Caracas has reappeared in a video showing an apparent assault on a military base.
The video shared on Oscar Perez's Twitter account shows him and several other armed assailants holding up a group of men dressed in army green shirts and pants, with their hands tied behind their backs.
"The people are the true force, not the regime," Perez says.
President Nicolas Maduro late Tuesday condemned a weekend assault on a National Guard barrack during a televised appearance, though made no mention of Perez or the video.
Maduro said that several rifles were stolen just outside of Caracas and that he had ordered the armed forces to find and take down the terrorists responsible for carrying out attacks on the country.
Perez led a high-profile attack in July, using a stolen police helicopter to fire on the Supreme Court and Interior Ministry buildings in Caracas. Nobody was injured and Perez has remained a fugitive, making occasional appearances on social media.
In addition to being a trained officer, Perez is an actor, pilot and dog trainer. Many within Venezuela have cast doubt on the legitimacy of his purported attacks, seeing them as a potential ruse to support Maduro's assertion the nation is regularly assaulted by opposition conspirators, though some friends have spoken in his defense.
The recent video shows Perez smashing a portrait of Maduro with his foot and assailants berating guardsmen for doing nothing to help their fellow citizens suffering from hunger.
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