Mayor charged in US overthrow plot; Caracas official arrested and jailed.

Byline: Girish Gupta

CARACAS, Venezuela -- The abrupt arrest of the mayor of Caracas on accusations that he had plotted a U.S.-backed overthrow of the government threatened to plunge Venezuela into new political convulsions Friday, as his supporters rallied in the capital and pockets of protest erupted elsewhere.

The arrest Thursday evening of Mayor Antonio Ledezma by intelligence agents who fired weapons in the air, was viewed by the opposition as the kidnapping of a political rival to President Nicolas Maduro.

Ledezma's backers called it another assault on democracy in Venezuela, the oil-endowed nation that has been reeling from a severe economic decline under the watch of an increasingly unpopular president.

Many opposition figures said Maduro, desperate to divert attention from Venezuela's internal ills and his own disapproval ratings, concocted Ledezma's arrest.

secret plot alleged

Maduro, the protege of Venezuela's longtime leader Hugo Chavez, often castigates the United States, accusing it of trying to topple his government. He promised, in a long speech soon after the mayor's arrest, to release evidence to demonstrate what he called the secret American plot to topple him.

"I have heard them saying that this is a lie, this is a show,'' he said, speaking of his political adversaries. "Because the United States gave the order, you have to mock the accusation, it must be trivialized. This is serious.''

Ledezma's...