The rogue helicopter pilot accused of leading a coup in Venezuela last year was killed in a police raid last night, say officials
ADVERTISEMENTIt’s been confirmed that rogue Venezuelan helicopter pilot Oscar Perez was killed in a police operation on Monday.
The interior minister said that he and six other militants died as their hideout was stormed in Caracas.
Perez was an former police officer who once starred in an action film.
Last year he used a hijacked helicopter to attack government buildings and stole weapons from a military base in what he called a rebellion against President Nicolas Maduro.
He appeared with a bloody face in nearly a dozen Instagram videos early on Monday, saying he was surrounded by authorities shooting at him with grenade launchers even though he was promising to surrender.
Interior Minister Nestor Reverol said seven "terrorists" including Perez were killed in the operation outside Caracas along with two police officers involved in the raid.
"In the face of an attack that put the lives of security officials at risk, the attacking group was neutralized using established protocols, with the unfortunate result of seven dead terrorists," Reverol said in a televised broadcast.
Perez rose to fame in June after allegedly hijacking a police helicopter, flying over Caracas' centre and firing shots at and lobbing grenades on the Interior Ministry and the Supreme Court.
He claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was to fight what he said was a tyrannical government.
He went into hiding afterward, but frequently appeared in videos that circulated on social media calling for resistance to Maduro.
The government described him as a "fanatic, extremist terrorist" and had been carrying out a manhunt for him since last June.
Critics initially questioned whether Perez's attacks were staged in cahoots with the government to justify a further crackdown on the opposition.
But his death prompted an outcry over what critics called an extrajudicial killing and turned him into a martyr for hard-line foes of Maduro.