Assassination Plot Found

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30157, 14 June 1963, Page 11

Assassination Plot Found

(JV.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

CARACAS (Venezuela), June 13.

President Betancourt last night ordered the summary arrest of all known Venezuelan Communists, after a plot to assassinate him, British United Press reported.

Broadcasting from San Felix, in south-western Venezuela. President Betancourt said Communists had tried to place a time-bomb in the Archbishop’s palace at Bolivar, which President Betancourt dedicated yesterday. He said police seized two of the terrorists. A third got away.

The summary arrests for periods not to exceed 15 or 30 days, under present law, were

aimed at curbing the present terrorist wave, he said. He said the time-bomb taken from the two wouldbe assassins had a timing device set to go off at the hour of the inauguration of the building. Authorities tentatively blamed the attempt on the Armed Forces of National Liberation (F.A.L.N.), a-Left-ist organisation which has been burning factories and government installations recently, the Associated Press reported.

The two captured men were Vicente Barrios and Jose Santana Rivas. The man who escaped was identified as Roger Antonio Figueroa. Accused In Bank Theft (N.Z Press Assn.— Copyright) MELBOURNE, June 13. Four men today denied charges they stole £35.000 from the E. S. and A Bank in Melbourne on May 28 last year. The men are Walter Raymond Radcliffe, aged 51, a builder; William Edward Stuart, aged 52, a farmer: Charles Lance Shirreff, aged 27, a former teller ait the bank; and Leslie Woon, aged 43. a salesman. alleged the men entered the bank and strongroom by using keys.