VENEZUELA’S foreign minister condemned the opposition and its foreign backers for remaining largely silent over this week’s helicopter attack on the capital.

At a press conference on Wednesday, Samuel Moncada said Democratic Unity Roundtable (Mud) coalition leader Henry Ramos’s only comment on social media was that the attack the previous day had been “useless.”

“Firstly, that does not condemn it,” Mr Moncada pointed out. “Secondly, it appears he was condemning it because it didn’t have the desired effect, that is to say, that it would blow up the building.”

Mr Ramos also asked why fellow Mud leader Henrique Capriles lacked the “moral courage to … repudiate a terrorist act.”

The newly appointed minster and former ambassador to Britain accused fellow members of the Washington-based Organisation of American States of “feigning ignorance” and thereby protecting the culprits.

He noted that sections of the media had portrayed the culprit, police investigator and one-time action film star Oscar Perez as a “Rambo type.”

Mr Perez stole a helicopter from an air base in the capital on Tuesday and attacked the Interior Ministry and the Supreme Justice Tribunal with gunfire and grenades.

The action was apparently in support of Mud-incited rioting that, for the past three months, had sought the overthrow of United Socialist Party (PSUV) President Nicolas Maduro.

The helicopter used in the grenade attack was found abandoned near the beach town of Osma in Vargas state, north-east of Caracas, the following day.

The government said Mr Perez was under investigation for links to the CIA and the US embassy in Caracas.

Police were also looking into his connections to former interior minister Miguel Rodriguez, who was also linked to the CIA in recently released documents.

Meanwhile, pro-opposition Attorney General Luisa Ortega accused the government of “state terrorism” after the Supreme Justice Tribunal banned her from leaving the country and froze her bank accounts.

That was in response to a complaint by PSUV MP Pedro Carreno accusing Ms Ortega of breaching her office’s duty of political non-partisanship and becoming “a political activist for the right.”

Ms Ortega refused to recognise the tribunal’s ruling and insisted that she would remain in her post despite the investigation into her conduct.

She continued to attack other tribunal decisions against the opposition.

They included Tuesday’s ruling lifting MPs’ immunity from prosecution and instructing President Maduro to enforce the rule of law and granting prosecutorial powers to Public Defender Tarek William Saab — formerly Ms Ortega’s remit.