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Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro excoriated opposition protesters on Sunday for setting a man on fire during a demonstration, accusing them of targeting him for being pro-government.
“A person was set on fire, beaten up, stabbed… They nearly lynched him, just because he shouted out that he was a ‘Chavista’,” Maduro said, referring to the ruling socialist movement set up by his predecessor Hugo Chavez.
Witnesses to the incident on Saturday afternoon, including a Reuters photographer, said the crowd had accused the man of being a thief.
About 100 people, who had been participating in anti-Maduro protests, surrounded him, doused him in gasoline and set him alight in Plaza Altamira in east Caracas, the witnesses said.