Venezuela’s Justice Minister Diosdado Cabello, the regime strongman named as a defendant in the superseding US indictment alongside apprehended Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, made his first public address since Maduro’s ousting yesterday, accusing the US of committing a terrible crime and killing civilians in the Saturday morning raid of Caracas.

He told the crowds that anti-American sentiment had grown since the attack and declared that the ‘Bolivarian revolution’ was still alive.

Cabello, a leading figure in the Venezuelan United Socialist Party (PSUV) has been spotted in the nation’s streets since the US Operation Sovereign Resolve saw Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores taken from their home in a pre-dawn military exercise. But his appearance yesterday amid pro-government demonstrators that flooded the streets of Caracas, was the first of its kind since the attack.