Venezuelan standoff

ATTORNEY-GENERAL WANTS JUDGES PUT ON TRIAL Top official breaks ranks with President Maduro over country’s deadly crisis.

Venezuela’s attorney-general raised the stakes in her standoff with the government on Tuesday by demanding eight Supreme Court judges loyal to President Nicolas Maduro be put on trial.

A staunch figure of the ruling party, Attorney-General Luisa Ortega, 59, is the highest-public official to break ranks with Maduro over the country’s deadly political crisis.

She has accused him and his allies of acting unconstitutionally in their standoff against the opposition in recent months of antigovernment protests.

In her latest manoeuvre to pressure the socialist president, she told reporters she’d filed a case accusing the eight judges of allowing “a breakdown in constitutional order”.

The charge refers to a ruling by the court in late March that seized power from the opposition-controlled National Assembly legislature.

The court later revoked the decision under international pressure, but it sparked a series of protests that has left 67 people dead. – AFP