US targets Venezuelan officials after ambassador expulsion

Sep 12, 2008, 14:39 GMT

Washington - The United States on Friday froze the assets of two high-ranking Venezuelan intelligence officials accused of arming rebels in neighbouring Colombia, amid a growing diplomatic standoff between Caracas and Washington.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Thursday expelled the US ambassador to Venezuela and recalled his own from the United States. The move was out of solidarity with Bolivia, which has accused the US of fomenting unrest in the country and pulled its own ambassador from the US this week.

The US Treasury's actions Friday target Hugo Armando Carvajal Barrios, director of Venezuela's Military Intelligence Directorate, and Henry de Jesus Rangel Silva, head of the Directorate of Intelligence and Prevention Services.

The Treasury also designated Venezuela's former interior minister, Ramon Rodriguez Chacin, for providing material support to Colombia's largest rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

'Today's designation exposes two senior Venezuelan government officials and one former official who armed, abetted, and funded the FARC, even as it terrorized and kidnapped innocents,' said Adam J Szubin, Director of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control.

The move freezes any financial assets the three officials may have in the United States.