Venezuelan lawmaker Freddy Superlano, a member of the opposition party, is in serious but stable condition after being poisoned in Colombia, his party says. His cousin has passed away.

Voluntad Popular, the party of opposition leader Juan Guaidó, said late on Saturday that Superlano was poisoned at a restaurant in Cúcuta, a city near the border with Venezuela. His assistant and cousin, Carlos Salinas, died.

Superlano and Salinas were said to have been poisoned with Burundanga, which is also known as hyoscine or scopolamine. The drug is used to treat motion sickness and other conditions, but it has also been used in robberies and sexual assaults, leading to the nickname “Devil’s Breath.”

It was not immediately known who may have been responsible for the poisoning. “We wait for the results of the investigation by the Colombian authorities to establish the facts,” the party said in a brief statement.

U.S. Senator Marco Rubio, a supporter of Guaido, said Superlano was poisoned while having breakfast on Saturday morning and called it a “grave situation.” A spokesperson for Superlano said the lawmaker is in serious but stable condition.

Photo of Carlos Salinas: </s> Venezuelan National Assembly oversight committee chairman Freddy Superlano, who was in the Colombian border city of Cucuta to help oversee humanitarian aid shipments into Venezuela, was poisoned along with his cousin, Carlos Salinas, who died, the lawmaker's press office said Sunday.

"In the city of #cucuta Cong. @freddysuperlano and his cousin Carlos Salinas were poisoned and Carlos died, the Cong. is stable, let us pray for his quick recovery," the lawmaker's press aides said in a Twitter post. </s> Freddy Superlano has reportedly been poisoned in Colombia

According to BNO news, Freddy Superlano was poisoned at a restaurant in Cucuta, a city near the country’s border with Venezuela. His party, which is led by Juan Guaido, has confirmed that Mr Superlano’s cousin and assistant Carlos Salinas has died as a result of the same poisoning incident. Reports state Mr Superlano and Mr Salinas were spiked with a substance known as hyoscine or scopolamine.

The drug is said to be used to treat motion sickness and other conditions.

However, it has also reportedly been used in robberies and sexual assaults which has led to it gaining the nickname ‘Devil’s Breath’.

US Senator Marco Rubio condemned the attack calling it a “grave situation”.

In a statement, the party said: “We wait for the results of the investigation by the Colombian authorities to establish the facts."

READ MORE: Venezuela: Maduro accepts aid from RUSSIA after blocking US supplies </s> CARACAS, April 21 (Reuters) - Eight people were electrocuted to death during a looting incident in Caracas, a firefighter said on Friday, amid violent protests against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro by opponents accusing him of seeking to create a dictatorship.

The accident occurred when a group of looters broke into a bakery in the working class neighborhood of El Valle, according the firefighter, who asked not be identified. It was not immediately possible to confirm details of the incident with hospital or other officials.

The public prosecutor's office said later on Friday it was investigating 11 deaths in El Valle, adding that "some" victims had died from being electrocuted.

Nine other people have been killed in violence associated with a wave of anti-government demonstrations in the past three weeks in which protesters have clashed with security forces in melees lasting well into the night.

"Yesterday around 9 or 10 (p.m.)things got pretty scary, a group of people carrying weapons came down ... and started looting," said Hane Mustafa, owner of a small supermarket in El Valle, where broken bottles of soy sauce and ketchup littered the floor between bare shelves.

"The security situation is not in the hands of the government. We lost everything here," said Mustafa, who said he could hear the looting from his home, which is adjacent to the store.

Dozens of businesses in the area showed signs of looting, ranging from empty shelves to broken windows and twisted metal entrance gates.

The Information Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for details.

Security forces patrolled much of Caracas on Friday, including El Valle.

Maduro's government is so far resisting the pressure of the most serious protests in three years as opposition leaders push a series of political demands, drawing support from a public angered by the country's collapsing economy.

Ruling Socialist Party leaders describe the protesters as hoodlums who are damaging public property and disrupting public order to overthrow the government with the support of ideological adversaries in Washington.

"This wounded and failed opposition is trying to generate chaos in key areas of the city and convince the world that we're in some sort of civil war, the same playbook used for Syria, for Libya and for Iraq," said Socialist Party official Freddy Bernal in an internet broadcast at 1:00 a.m.

Opposition leaders have promised to keep up their protests, demanding that Maduro's government call general elections, free almost 100 jailed opposition activists and respect the autonomy of the opposition-led Congress.

They are calling for community-level protests across the country on Friday, a white-clad "silent" march in Caracas on Saturday to commemorate those killed in the unrest, and a nationwide "sit-in" blocking Venezuela's main roads on Monday.

Daniela Alvarado, 25, who sells vegetables in the El Valle area, said the looting on Thursday night began after police officers fired tear gas and buckshot at demonstrators blocking a street with burning tires.

"People starting looting the businesses and yelling that they were hungry and that they want the government out," said Alvarado. "We're afraid (the stores) are going to run out of everything, that tomorrow there won't be any food."

Separately, a man was killed by a gunshot in the Caracas slum of Petare on Thursday night, municipal mayor Carlos Ocariz said on Friday.

The OPEC nation's economy has been in free-fall since the collapse of oil prices in 2014. The generous oil-financed welfare state created by late socialist leader Hugo Chavez, Maduro's predecessor, has given way to a Soviet-style economy marked by consumer shortages, triple-digit inflation and snaking supermarket lines.

Many Venezuelans say they have to skip meals in order to feed their children.

Public anger at the situation spilled over last month when the Supreme Court, which is seen as close to the government, briefly assumed the powers of the Congress. The protests were further fueled when the government barred the opposition's best-known leader, two-time presidential candidate Henrique Capriles, from holding public office. (Additional reporting by Carlos Garcia and Brian Ellsworth; Writing by Brian Ellsworth; Editing by Alexandra Ulmer and Frances Kerry) </s> The United Nations has said it will investigate the death in custody of an opposition councillor jailed by Venezuela’s intelligence police on allegations that he plotted to kill President Nicolás Maduro.

Venezuelan officials said that Fernando Albán killed himself by leaping from the 10th floor of the state police agency’s headquarters. But opposition leaders denied the official version.

Ravina Shamdasani with the Office of United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said Venezuelan officials were obligated to ensure Albán’s safety while in their custody. The investigation into his death will be part of the UN’s wider investigation of alleged human rights abuses, she said.

“We are concerned about news of his death,” Shamdasani said. “We do indeed call for a transparent investigation to clarify the circumstances.”

Albán, 56, was taken into custody on Friday at Caracas’s international airport upon arriving from New York, according to his lawyer. He was in the US accompanying other members of his First Justice party for meetings with foreign dignitaries attending the United Nations general assembly.

A few dozen of Albán’s supporters gathered outside the police building yelling “Maduro killer!” contending that he had been murdered.

“There’s no doubt this was an assassination,” the opposition leader Julio Borges said in a video from exile in neighbouring Colombia, without providing evidence of his claim. “The only thing left for this government is torture, violence and destruction.”

While Venezuelans last year saw dozens of youths killed in violent street battles with security forces, the death of activists or government opponents while in state custody is a fate more associated with the far deadlier, rightwing dictatorships that dominated much of South America in the 1970s.

The opposition claims that more than 100 Venezuelans opposed to Maduro are being held as “political prisoners”, some for more than four years, with little access to the outside world and their legal rights routinely trampled on. The government denies they are political prisoners.

Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro survives apparent assassination attempt Read more

Borges, who led the delegation to the UN, said Albán’s wife told him that her husband had been under intense pressure to testify against him in the ongoing investigation into the alleged plot in early August to kill Maduro using two drones loaded with explosives.

More than two dozen people have been jailed on suspicion of involvement in the plot, which Maduro claims was orchestrated by Borges with the support of Colombia and the US.

The chief prosecutor, Tarek William Saab, ordered an investigation into the circumstances surrounding Albán’s death, which he classified as a suicide.

ISpeaking on state TV, he said Albán was in the waiting room of the headquarters of Venezuela’s intelligence police waiting to be transferred to a courthouse when he asked to use the bathroom. He then threw himself from the 10th floor of the building, officials said.

Borges, who said Albán was a personal friend, said the councillor – who represented a district in the Caracas area – was a family man and devout Catholic who would never kill himself.

Albán’s lawyer, Joel García, said his client seemed calm when they met on the night before in the tribunal. García said authorities cannot determine that a death is a suicide without an investigation and he would ask to be present at the autopsy. </s> Caracas - A fifth person died Thursday after being shot during protests against the Venezuelan government, officials said, as tension mounted in a political crisis driven by food shortages.

The 32-year-old man died from a gunshot wound suffered during clashes on Tuesday night in the northwestern town of Cabudare, a spokesperson for the public prosecution service who asked not to be named told AFP.

Socialist President Nicolas Maduro is fighting off efforts to oust him as Venezuela, once a booming oil exporting nation, struggles with shortages of food and medicine.

Dozens of people have been injured and more than 100 arrested since April 6, according to authorities.

Riot police in various cities have fired tear gas and water cannon at stone-throwing demonstrators.

Opposition lawmaker Alfonso Marquina also reported the man's death on Twitter, identifying him as Antonio Gruseny Calderon.

Marquina called him "another victim of the dictatorship."

"My solidarity and condolences for all his relatives and friends. This must not go unpunished," he wrote.

Marquina and officials earlier said a 13-year-old boy was shot dead in protests on Tuesday in the western city of Barquisimeto, in Lara state.

Marquina blamed that killing on so-called "colectivos," armed supporters of the government who the opposition says commit violence during demonstrations.

A 36-year-old man was killed the same night in Barquisimeto, prosecutors said.

Two 19-year-old students were shot by police in earlier unrest, one on April 6 and one on April 11, according to authorities.

Also on Thursday, opposition lawmaker Jose Manuel Olivares said police fired tear gas "point-blank" at demonstrators in the state of Vargas.

"If they think they will scare us that way they are wrong. We will stay in the street!" he wrote on Twitter.

Two other demonstrations took place in Caracas and one in the country's second city, Maracaibo, without incidents, according to media reports.

On Wednesday, scuffles broke out between government supporters and opponents during a Holy Week procession at the Santa Teresa church in central Caracas.

The next major organised rallies called by opposition leaders are set for Wednesday next week.

That is expected to be the next big showdown in an increasingly fraught crisis that has raised international concerns for Venezuela's stability.

The opposition is demanding the authorities set a date for postponed regional elections.

It is also furious over moves to limit the powers of the legislature and ban senior opposition leader Henrique Capriles from politics.

Those moves have raised international condemnation including from the United States and the European Union.

Maduro has resisted opposition efforts to hold a referendum on removing him, vowing to continue the "socialist revolution" launched by his late predecessor Hugo Chavez.

Maduro says the economic crisis is the result of what he calls a US-backed capitalist conspiracy. </s> CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — The Latest on the protests and counter demonstrations in Venezuela (all times local):

Venezuelan Interior Minister Nestor Reverol is blaming an opposition party for the killing of a 23-year-old woman amid ongoing protests in the South American country.

Reverol said Thursday that Paola Ramirez was killed on Wednesday by a member of Vente Venezuela, a party led by high-profile opposition leader Maria Corina Machado.

Vente Venezuela did not immediately respond to the accusation. Machado said the government was trying to blame her party for the killing of a young woman that the administration itself was responsible for.

Ramirez was killed over the past day in the restive western border city of San Cristobal amid protests that also left two others dead — a teenage boy reportedly on his way to a soccer match with friends, and a National Guard officer whose unit was attacked.

The minister said a preliminary investigation suggests that the Vente Venezuela attack on Ramirez was planned in advance.

San Cristobal Mayor Patricia Gutierrez has said that Ramirez was shot to death by people who appeared to be government supporters.

The spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says that the organization is “concerned” about what’s happening in Venezuela and urges that “all efforts be made to lower tensions and prevent further clashes.”

A statement issued Thursday by spokesman Stephane Dujarric calls on the Venezuelan government and opposition to “engage sincerely to reactivate dialogue efforts, ” especially on issues such as the balance of power among branches of government, the electoral calendar, human rights, truth and justice and the country’s socio-economic situation.”

Tens of thousands of people are pouring into the main thoroughfares of Caracas in the latest anti-government demonstration in the Venezuelan capital.

Just minutes after they started on Thursday, police deployed tear gas in an effort to slow their advance.

Amid a sea of Venezuelan flags the marchers shouted: “Who are we?”

“What do we want?” the marchers asked.

Wilfredo Coronel, a 42-year-old priest, held up a rosary in his right hand.

He accused the government of violating the people’s right to live, food and free expression and “it’s necessary that we recover those spaces.

The European Union is calling for an investigation into the deaths and other violence during anti-government demonstrations in Venezuela and for those responsible to be held accountable.

The EU’s executive commission said Thursday that it was “saddened” by the deaths of two young people during Wednesday’s protests. A third person, a National Guard sergeant, was killed and a colonel was injured when their squad was attacked with gunfire while trying to control disturbances in a city near Caracas.

Eight people have died so far in demonstrations over the past several weeks.

The European Commission says: “All concerned, including members of the security forces, have a responsibility to act in full compliance with the rule of law and human rights.”

The bloc urged Venezuelans “to come together to de-escalate the situation and find democratic solutions.”

General Motors has stopped doing business in Venezuela after authorities took control of its only factory there in what GM called an illegal judicial seizure of its assets.

The plant was confiscated on Wednesday as anti-government protesters clashed with authorities in a country that is roiling in economic troubles such as food shortages and triple-digit inflation.

The Detroit automaker said in a statement Thursday that other assets such as vehicles were taken from the plant, causing irreparable damage to the company.

GM says the plant was taken in disregard of its right to due process. The company says it will defend itself legally and that it’s confident that justice eventually will prevail.

GM has about 2,700 workers in the troubled country, where it’s been the market leader for over 35 years.

Authorities say a third person has died overnight in the ongoing protests in Venezuela.

The chief prosecutor’s office reported Thursday that a National Guard sergeant was killed and a colonel injured when their squad was attacked with gunfire while trying to control disturbances in a city near Caracas.

The sergeant was the third person reported killed in the protests over the past day and the eighth person to die in demonstrations over the past several weeks. The other two people killed amid Wednesday’s demonstrations included a teenager who was heading to a soccer match with friends. Both of those other two deaths were blamed on pro-government groups.

Venezuela’s opposition is looking to keep up pressure on President Nicolas Maduro by taking to the streets again Thursday, a day after hundreds were arrested in the biggest anti-government demonstrations in years. </s> At least three people were killed in Venezuela when clashes broke out during anti-government protests described by opposition leaders as the “mother of all marches.”

Supporters of President Nicolas Maduro also held a counter rally Wednesday as opposition marchers gathered in the streets.

An hour into the march in Caracas, a 17-year-old boy was shot in the head, according to the Venezuela’s public ministry, which said it had started investigating the incident. The teenager, later identified as Carlos Moreno, died while undergoing surgery, a hospital representative told CNN.

Moreno’s sister, Alejandra, said Carlos studied economics at Venezuelan Central University in Caracas. Instead of joining the marches, she said, he was on the way to play soccer.

Video posted on social media showed a young man on the ground in the San Bernardino neighborhood — a pool of blood near his head — surrounded by marchers. A woman is heard yelling, “They’ve killed him.”

The ministry said it was also investigating the Wednesday afternoon shooting death of Paola Andreina Ramírez Gómez, 23, in plaza San Carlos in San Cristóbal, Tachira state.

Jorban Contreras, a paramedic and director of the civil protection unit in Tachira, said the woman lost a lot of blood and was already dead from a gunshot wound to her chest when he arrived.

In a third death, Venezuelan National Guard Sgt. Niumar Jose San Clemente Barrios was fatally shot Wednesday night, said the public prosecutor’s office and Venezuela’s top human rights official, ombudsman Tarek William Saab. A second guardsman was wounded by a bullet, the officials said. Both were shot during “violent protests” in the municipality of Los Salias, south of the nation’s capital, according to Saab.

The public prosecutor’s office has called for an investigation into the shooting.

Maduro: Don’t complain when law comes after you

Maduro, who along with his supporters called for the countermarch, had deployed the Venezuelan armed forces to the streets on Sunday night amid rising tensions.

He gave a fiery speech on Wednesday, accusing the opposition leaders of inciting violence. He called out the President of the opposition-controlled National Assembly, Julio Borges, saying “You are the head of the coup. Later, don’t complain when the law comes after you.”

Wednesday’s marches underscored the widening political rifts in the country, where the opposition has accused Maduro of creating a dictatorship in the last few years. The government has repeatedly blocked any attempts by the opposition to oust Maduro from power by a referendum vote. It has also delayed local and state elections.

The opposition called for another march on Thursday, using the same strategy from the day before when protesters started their march at 26 different points throughout Caracas and converged at the office of the ombudsman, the government’s top human rights official.

Government supporters and security forces on Wednesday succeeded in blocking marchers from reaching certain parts of the city, according to observers. Throughout the day, water cannons and tear gas canisters were unleashed on opposition marchers.

Video posted on social media showed marchers — some covering their faces — crossing the narrow Guaire River in the nation’s capital in attempts to elude tear gas blasts.

The video was posted by David Smolansky, mayor of the municipality of El Hatillo and an opposition leader.

In Washington, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson expressed concerns to reporters Wednesday that the “government of Maduro is violating its own constitution and is not allowing the opposition to have their voices heard, nor allowing them to organize in a way that expresses the views of the Venezuelan people.”

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said via Twitter on Wednesday that he had directed his country’s exterior ministry to ask the UN Secretary General to address what he called the “worrying militarization of Venezuelan society.”

What the opposition wants

The last vote held in Venezuela, the parliamentary election of 2015, gave the opposition a majority. Critics say any elections since have been delayed because Maduro is afraid of the outcome.

Then, on March 29, the Venezuelan Supreme Court dissolved the Parliament, transferring all legislative powers to itself. By doing away with the opposition-controlled legislative branch, the move effectively meant the remaining two branches of Venezuelan government were controlled by the ruling United Socialist Party. The opposition was outraged and called the move a coup. The decision was reversed three days later, but by that time protests had already erupted.

The protests have been bloody. Six people have died and countless others, many journalists, have been injured.

The opposition call became even stronger when, on April 7, the government notified main opposition leader Henrique Capriles that he had been banned from doing any political work for 15 years. The 44-year-old governor, who has run for president twice, said the government was again acting like a dictatorship.

Maduro, 54, has been defiant. Instead of taking steps to reduce tensions with the opposition, he has taken a confrontational tone with members of the opposition and protesters, whom he calls “vandals and terrorists.”

Opposition leaders have called for the National Assembly’s powers to be fully restored, for all the political prisoners to be freed, for a humanitarian corridor to be opened and for the stalled elections to take place.

Unemployment, meanwhile, is set to surpass 25% this year, possibly on its way to 28% next year. It was at 7.4% in 2015.

Venezuela’s economy shrank 18% last year, its third year of recession. It is expected to be in the red this year and next.

The country’s food shortages have become severe in the last couple of years. Venezuelans have endured weeks, in some cases months, without basics like milk, eggs, flour, soap and toilet paper.

When there is food and water on the shelves, prices are so high that few Venezuelans can afford it. Many have taken to eating out of the trash.

Medicine also remains in short supply. Venezuelans hunt for penicillin and other remedies at pharmacies everywhere, often without success. The country’s public hospitals have fallen apart, causing people, including infants, to die because of the scarcity of basic medical care.

Venezuela recently asked the United Nations for help to relieve serious shortages of medicines in the country. </s> Amid shortages of food and medicine, thousands take to Caracas streets as campaign to topple the president turns deadly.

Fresh clashes have erupted between police and protesters rallying against the Venezuelan government as a fifth person reportedly dies after being shot during earlier unrest.

Thousands of Venezuelans took to the streets in eastern Caracas amid a tropical downpour on Thursday to support a protest movement that appears to be gaining steam even as it turns more deadly.

Venezuela officials confirmed later in the day that a fifth person had died in the wave of anti-government protests now entering its third week.

The public prosecutor's office says it will investigate the death of Miguel Colmenares, 36.

He was shot at during a protest in the central city of Barquisimeto on Tuesday.

Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela's socialist president, is fighting off efforts to topple him as Venezuela struggles with shortages of food and medicine.

Dozens of people have been injured and more than 100 arrested over the past week in clashes in various cities, according to authorities.

Alfonso Marquina, an opposition politician, on Twitter identified the latest death as Antonio Gruseny Calderon and called him "another victim of the dictatorship".

Marquina and officials earlier said a 13-year-old boy was shot dead in protests on Tuesday in Barquisimeto.

Marquina blamed that killing on so-called colectivos, armed supporters of the government whom the opposition accuses of attacking them during demonstrations.

A 36-year-old man was killed the same night in Barquisimeto, prosecutors said.

Two 19-year-old students were shot by police in earlier unrest, one on April 6 and one on April 11, according to authorities.

Also on Thursday, Jose Manuel Olivares, another opposition legislator, said police fired tear gas "point-blank" at demonstrators in the state of Vargas.

"If they think they will scare us that way they are wrong. We will stay in the street!" he wrote on Twitter.

While demonstrations are often held in middle-class neighbourhoods, this most recent wave of unrest for the first time has prompted protests in the slums that have historically been bastions of support for the socialist revolution launched nearly two decades ago by Hugo Chavez, the late president.
Venezuelan opposition deputy Freddy Superlano and his assistant are poisoned at a restaurant in Cúcuta, Colombia. His assistant and cousin, Carlos Salinas, has died while Superlano is in a serious but stable condition in hospital.