VENEZUELAN usurper Juan Guaido has been summoned to appear in court tomorrow to face charges of masterminding an attempted coup and assassination plot.

Judges want to quiz him about a weapons cache intercepted at the border with Colombia in March last year. The arms were allegedly due to be smuggled into Venezuela to be used by militia trained in Colombia.

The discovery came at a time when the former president of the Venezuelan National Assembly was demanding the people rise up in armed insurrection to overthrow the democratically elected government of President Nicolas Maduro.

Former Venezuelan major general Cliver Alcala Cordones, who lived in Barranquilla in Colombia, has admitted his involvement in the plot, saying that he was acting under Mr Guaido’s instructions.

Venezuelan Attorney General Tarek William Saab accused Colombia of failing to co-operate despite an arrest warrant having been issued against Mr Alcala on charges of treason, illicit trafficking in weapons of war, terrorism and attempted assassination.

“In the midst of all this, he was not even the subject of a subsequent investigation and the opening as a detainee of a criminal prosecution,” Mr Saab said.

Mr Alcala has since surrendered to the US, where he is helping build a case against Mr Maduro after Washington accused the latter of running a violent drug cartel putting a $15 million bounty on his head.

The agreement for the purchase of the weapons was allegedly signed by Venezuelan opposition political activist and advisor to Mr Guaido, Juan José Rendón who now lives in the US.

Mr Guaido declared himself interim president of Venezuela shortly after Mr Maduro’s inauguration in January 2019. 

Imperialist governments including the US and Britain lined up to support his bid to topple Mr Maduro, offering political and financial support while implementing restrictions on the Venezuelan government.

But even the Venezuelan opposition tired of his failed antics and voted him out of his post as President of the National Assembly branding him “a dream that turned into a nightmare.”

Mr Guaido refused to accept the result, declaring himself the victor, despite losing the vote.

The US has refused to give up, with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo calling on Tuesday for a power-sharing agreement between Mr Maduro and Mr Guaido with fresh elections held in six months to a year.

His plan was rejected as “pseudo interventionist” by Caracas with Foreign Minister Jorge  Arreaza warning of “a new form of coup d’etat”