Assembly chief Diosdado Cabello called the session to strip the lawmakers of their parliamentary immunity so they could face trial for the alleged and failed bid to kill the president.

“When justice comes, it hits hard,” Cabello said.

In a television and radio address, Maduro simultaneously accused opposition legislator Juan Requesens and Borges, a former parliamentary speaker currently in exile who is a top opposition figure, of having plotted a drone “assassination” attempt on the Socialist leader over the weekend.

Requesens’s party, Primero Justicia (Justice First), said he and his sister Rafaela were “arrested and hit” in a sweep by a group of 14 men from the SEBIN national intelligence service unit. DM