Leiver Padilla Mendoza, the accused mastermind behind the murders of Robert Serra and his partner Maria Herrera, spoke to Colombian radio today. “El Colombia” – his nickname, according to Venezuelan authorities – rebuked virtually every assertion made of him by the Maduro government, saying:
I’m not a paramilitary chief, nor have I have $25,000 [to kill Serra] as Nicolas Maduro said, and I am Venezuelan. I don’t understand why I’m being accused.
Padilla also said that he does also have Colombian citizenship, that he has not been able to contact his family in Venezuela, and that he fears for their safety. He also said that he is friends with one of Serra’s body guards, and that he came into contact with the weapons with which Serra and Herrera were killed, but that he did not commit the murders. He also said:
I don’t understand anything about politics. This is a Venezuelan political plot. I don’t have anything against Nicolas Maduro. I’m a chavista and I don’t know why I’m being judged in this way. They say that I’m Colombian. I really don’t understand any of this.
(…)
I feel like I’m being treated unfairly. Nicolas Maduro is painting me as the intellectual mastermind when in reality I had nothing to do with [Serra’s] murder.
In the same interview, Padilla revealed that he has asked the Colombian government for asylum. The Colombian Foreign Minister, Maria Angela Holguin, appeared to reject the idea out of hand as a legal impossibility today, saying:
He was, in fact, born in Caracas to Colombian parents. He was registered in the Colombian Consulate in Caracas after his birth, which is why he has dual citizenship – Venezuelan and Colombian. For that reason, asking for asylum in his own country [Colombia] no se da [literally, “doesn’t go”, similar to “doesn’t work” or “can’t work”]. We’re in a process of extradition now, because he’s Colombian, and we can’t deport one of our own nationals. There has to be an extradition process. Venezuela has formally requested this. All the relevant paperwork has been filed, and the legal process leading to extradition is in motion.
Maduro Goes After Autonomous Universities
President Maduro launched a scathing verbal attack against the country’s autonomous universities today, and characterized them as representing only “small interests”. Maduro said:
Who decides who gets into private universities? Top management, an oligarchy. We have to democratize admissions into private universities. It can’t be that a group of managers has taken over the private universities.
Maduro also said that his administration will fight against the “privatization” of the autonomous universities.
Venezuela has five autonomous universities: Universidad de Los Andes, Universidad de Carabobo, Universidad Central de Venezuela, Universidad de Zulia, and Universidad del Oriente.
In Venezuela 