CARACAS, Venezuela -- The disputed jailhouse death of an opposition councilman arrested on allegations of plotting to kill President Nicolas Maduro has triggered alarm among many Venezuelans and swift condemnation from several foreign dignitaries. Venezuela's government said on Monday that Fernando Alban took his own life by leaping from the 10th floor of the state intelligence agency's headquarters. But opposition leaders denied the official version and a few dozen of Alban's supporters gathered outside the building yelling "Maduro killer!" contending that he had been murdered. 
 
 "There's no doubt this was an assassination," opposition leader Julio Borges said in a video from exile in neighboring Colombia, without providing evidence of his claim. "The only thing left for this government is torture, violence and destruction." 
 
 Alban, 56, was taken into custody Friday at Caracas' international airport upon arriving from New York, according to his lawyer. He was in the U.S. accompanying other members of his First Justice party for meetings with foreign dignitaries attending the United Nations General Assembly. 
 
 While Venezuelans last year watched as dozens of youths were killed in violent street battles with security forces, the death of activists or government opponents while in state custody is a fate more associated with the far deadlier, right-wing dictatorships that dominated much of South America in the 1970s. 
 
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 The opposition claims that more than 100 Venezuelans opposed to Maduro are being held as "political prisoners," some for more than four years, with little access to the outside world and their legal rights routinely trampled on. The government denies they are political prisoners. 
 
 Some compared the incident with Alban to another suspicious death from Venezuela's own dark past: the passing in prison in 1976 of socialist militant Jorge Rodriguez, the father of current Vice President Delcy Rodriguez and her brother, also named Jorge Rodriguez, a top aide to Maduro. Also considered a suicide in its day, Rodriguez is now deemed to have died from injuries suffered from torture. 
 
 Borges, who led the delegation to the U.N., said Alban's wife told him that her husband had been under intense pressure to testify against him in the ongoing probe into the alleged plot in early August to kill Maduro using two drones loaded with explosives. 
 
 More than two dozen people have been jailed on suspicion of involvement in the plot, which Maduro claims was orchestrated by Borges with the support of Colombia and the U.S. 
 
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 Chief prosecutor Tarek William Saab ordered an investigation into the circumstances surrounding Alban's death, which he classified as a suicide. 
 
 In brief comments on state TV he said Alban was in the waiting room of the Caracas headquarters of Venezuela's intelligence police waiting to be transferred to a courthouse when he asked to use the bathroom. He then threw himself from the 10th floor of the building, 
 
 Republican Sen. Bob Corker, the outgoing chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who is in Venezuela for meetings with Maduro and his opponents, called Alban's death while in the government's custody "disturbing." 
 
 "The government has a responsibility to ensure all understand how that could have happened," he said in a message posted on Twitter. 
 
 Also expressing concern was Venezuela's Catholic bishops' conference and Luis Almagro, the head of the Organization of American States and a sharp critic of Venezuela's socialist government, who called Alban's death "the direct responsibility of a torturing and homicidal regime." 
 
 "This criminal dictatorship should leave Venezuela now," he tweeted. 
 
 As night fell on Caracas, and rumors swelled on social media that the government was planning to cremate the body to hide any signs of torture, family members gathered outside the morgue to demand Alban's body be handed over. 
 
 Borges, who said Alban was a personal friend, said the councilman who represented a district in the Caracas area was a family man and devout Catholic who would never kill himself. 
 
 "Alban is a very Christian person, with deep spiritual convictions that go contrary to a decision to take one's life," said lawyer Joel Garcia, who has represented Alban. 
 
 He said he met with Alban the night before in the tribunal and his client had seemed calm. Garcia said authorities cannot determine that a death is a suicide without an investigation and he would ask to be present at the autopsy. ||||| CARACAS (Reuters) - The Venezuelan government hunted on Wednesday for rogue policemen who attacked key installations by helicopter, but critics of President Nicolas Maduro suspected the raid may have been staged to justify repression. 
 
 In extraordinary scenes over Caracas around sunset on Tuesday, the stolen helicopter fired shots at the Interior Ministry and dropped grenades on the Supreme Court, both viewed by Venezuela’s opposition as bastions of support for a dictator. 
 
 Nobody was injured. 
 
 Officials said special forces were seeking Oscar Perez, 36, a police pilot named as the mastermind of the raid by the helicopter that carried a banner saying “Freedom!” 
 
 In 2015, Perez co-produced and starred in “Death Suspended,” an action film in which he played the lead role as a government agent rescuing a kidnapped businessman. 
 
 There was no sign on Wednesday of Perez, whom officials condemned as a “psychopath”, but the helicopter was found on Venezuela’s northern Caribbean coastline. 
 
 “We ask for maximum support to find this fanatic, extremist terrorist,” vice president Tareck El Aissami said. 
 
 The attack exacerbated an already full-blown political crisis in Venezuela after three months of opposition protests demanding general elections and fixes for the sinking economy. 
 
 At least 76 people have died in the unrest since April, the latest a 25-year-old man shot in the head near a protest in the Petare slum of Caracas, authorities said on Wednesday. 
 
 Hundreds more people have been injured and arrested in what Maduro terms an ongoing coup attempt with U.S. encouragement. 
 
 The attack fed a conspiracy theory by opposition supporters that it may have been a government setup and overshadowed other drama on Tuesday, including the besieging of opposition legislators by gangs in the National Assembly. 
 
 The helicopter raid also coincided with a judicial measure weakening the powers of dissident chief state prosecutor Luisa Ortega, who has emerged as a major challenger to Maduro. 
 
 “It seems like a movie,” said Julio Borges, leader of the opposition-controlled legislature, of the helicopter raid. 
 
 “Some people say it is a set-up, some that it is real ... Yesterday was full of contradictions ... A thousand things are happening, but I summarize it like this: a government is decaying and rotting, while a nation is fighting for dignity.” 
 
 Though Perez posted a video on social media showing himself in front of four hooded armed men and claiming to represent a coalition of security and civilian officials rising up against “tyranny,” there was no evidence of deeper support. 
 
 “CHEAP SHOW” 
 
 The government, however, accused the policemen of links to the CIA and to Miguel Rodriguez, a former interior minister and intelligence chief under Maduro and his predecessor Hugo Chavez, who recently broke with the government. 
 
 “I’m not at all convinced by the helicopter incident,” Rodriguez told Reuters on Wednesday, saying the figures behind Perez in the video looked like dummies and expressing surprise the helicopter could fly freely and also not injure anyone. 
 
 FILE PHOTO: Police official Oscar Perez poses for photographs during an event of the Body of Scientific, Penal and Criminal Investigation (CICPC) in Caracas, Venezuela March 1, 2015. REUTERS/Christian Veron 
 
 “Conclusion: a cheap show. Who gains from this? Only Nicolas for two reasons: to give credibility to his coup d’etat talk, and to blame Rodriguez,” he added, referring to himself. 
 
 Around the time of the attack, the pro-government Supreme Court expanded the role of the state ombudsman, a human rights guarantor who is closely allied with Maduro, by giving him powers previously held only by the state prosecutor’s office. 
 
 Opposition leaders described that as an attempt to supplant chief prosecutor Ortega, who has confronted both Maduro and the Supreme Court this year after splitting ranks. 
 
 The Supreme Court on Wednesday evening said it approved a measure blocking Ortega from leaving the country, freezing her bank accounts, and summoning her to a July 4 hearing to discuss whether she has committed “serious offenses.” 
 
 Adding to Venezuela’s tinder-box atmosphere, opposition supporters again took to the streets nationwide on Wednesday to barricade roads. 
 
 One opposition lawmaker, Juan Guaido, filmed himself bleeding from wounds he said were inflicted by rubber bullets. 
 
 Opposition supporters hope that cracks within government may swing the crisis their way, and have been delighted to see heavyweights like Ortega and Rodriguez oppose Maduro. 
 
 Their main focus is to stop a July 30 vote called by Maduro to form a super-body known as a Constituent Assembly, with powers to rewrite the constitution and supersede other institutions. Maduro says the assembly is the only way to bring peace to Venezuela, but opponents say it is a sham vote intended solely to keep an unpopular government in power. 
 
 “We can’t let July 30 happen, we mustn’t,” said children’s health worker Rosa Toro, 52, blocking a road with friends. “We’re being governed by criminals, traffickers and thieves,” added lawyer Matias Perez, 40, protesting with a plastic trumpet. 
 
 Government officials lined up on Wednesday to condemn the helicopter attack, insisting it was the work of a few individuals and not representative of wider dissent. 
 
 Slideshow (16 Images) 
 
 Foreign Minister Samuel Moncada complained about the lack of international condemnation of the attack, saying it contrasted with the barrage of foreign criticism of the government. 
 
 “In Europe it’s now eight at night, but we’ve not had any reaction from European Union countries,” he said of a bloc that has been strongly critical of Maduro in recent months. 
 
 The minister rejected accusations that the attack was carried out by the government for its own purposes. 
 
 “Who can believe we are that sophisticated? Sending someone to throw grenades, who can believe that?” he asked.
– Venezuela has booted two US diplomats after accusing them of espionage and plotting to destabilize the country. With Hugo Chavez clinging to life, it was Vice President Nicolas Maduro who today announced the government's move. He said one of the Americans, identified as an Air Force attache named David Delmonaco, had been meeting with military officers, spying on the military, and plotting against the government, reports the AP. Venezuela later said a second Air Force attache, still unidentified, also was being expelled on espionage charges. That wasn't all the bluster from Maduro in comments made to reporters today, notes CNN: He asserted that the "scientific proof" would one day emerge to prove that Chavez was poisoned by "the historical enemies of our heartland." He likened the poisoning to what happened to Yasser Arafat. (Update: Maduro announced the death of Chavez hours after making the accusations.)