KNOXVILLE MARINE ACCUSED OF BEING A SPY DETAINED IN VENUZUELA
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT) – President Joe Biden signed an executive order Tuesday to strengthen efforts to bring home American hostages and those wrongfully detained in other countries.
Matthew John Heath is a former Marine from Knoxville who has been detained in Venezuela since September of 2020 and just last month attempted suicide according to his family.
According to a report from the AP, he was charged in connection to a terrorist plot to sabotage oil refineries and electrical service in order to stir unrest, Venezuela’s former Chief Prosecutor Tarek William Saab said on state television.
Heath was accused of having ties to the CIA and receiving help from three Venezuelan conspirators who were arrested with him near a pair of oil refineries on the Caribbean coast, according to Saab.
During the broadcast, Saab said there were pictures of possible targets on the men’s phones. He also showed pictures of a grenade launcher, plastic explosives, a satellite phone, as well as other equipment that he said was confiscated from the men when they were arrested.
“Everything here could qualify as a lethal weapon designed to cause harm and to promote assassinations, crimes against the people of Venezuela,” Saab said on state television, according to the report from AP.
Heath was charged with terrorism, trafficking illegal weapons and conspiracy.
Biden’s executive order strengthens the 2020 Robert Levinson Hostage Recovery and Hostage-Taking accountability Act to enforce the government’s ability to support the families of the hostages, as well as give the authority to impose sanctions on those involved in the detainment, a senior administrative official at the White House said.
“Foreign states that engage in the practice of wrongful detention, whether it’s for political leverage or to seek concessions from the United States, threaten the integrity of the international political system and, moreover, the safety of US nationals and other persons abroad,” the official said. “And the same can be said of terrorist organizations, criminal groups, and other malicious actors who take hostages for financial, political, or other nefarious gains.”
