Seven Venezuelan police agents and four civilians have been arrested in connection with an attack on a synagogue that sparked international condemnation.
President Hugo Chavez, whom Jewish groups accuse of encouraging antisemitism, referred to the arrests and said the attack was led by a police officer who had worked closely with the rabbi at the synagogue.
“What a coincidence, the gang leader is a metropolitan police officer who for the last four years was the personal bodyguard of the synagogue’s rabbi,” he said during an interview with television station Venevision.
Armed men broke into Venezuela’s Tiferet synagogue last month, daubed the walls with slogans like “Jews get out” and destroyed religious objects.
The public prosecutor’s office said the civilians detained included at least one security official from the synagogue and that all had been captured in raids over the weekend.
