CARACAS, (Reuters) – Venezuelan officials used forged emails to accuse government adversaries of plotting to kill President Nicolas Maduro, according to a private investigation firm hired by one of the accused.
Ruling Socialist Party leaders in May said a group of ardent government critics were preparing to “annihilate” Maduro as part of a planned coup, showing images of emails they said were evidence of the plot.
The images of the emails showed “many indications of user manipulation,” according to the report released on Tuesday by Kivu Consulting.
Records subpoenaed from Google also showed that messages attributed to consultant Pedro Burelli had never actually been sent, the report added.
“The ‘emails’ … are clearly mockups and do not reflect actual screenshots,” reads the report. “There is no evidence of the existence of any emails between Pedro Burelli’s Google email accounts and the alleged recipients on those dates.”
Burelli, whose lawyers retained the services of Kivu, called the accusations “farcical and defamatory.”