VENEZUELAN President Nicolas Maduro said elections for a new constituent assembly will still go ahead despite the threat of US sanctions.

In a statement on Monday, US President Donald Trump threatened “strong and swift economic actions” if Venezuela carries out a July 30 election to the National Constituent Assembly — a new body tasked with rewriting the 1999 constitution.

But Mr Maduro said Caracas’s response to Washington “will be very firm in defence of our historic anti-colonial heritage.

“No foreign government gives orders to our country,” he said. “Here, Venezuelans are in charge.”

Foreign Minister Samuel Moncada said the government was conducting a “deep review of relations with the US government because we don’t accept humiliation from anyone.”

The opposition Democratic Unity Roundtable (Mud) is boycotting the assembly and held an unauthorised referendum on Sunday against it.

But the Supreme Justice Tribunal has ruled the process constitutional and the government will hold a referendum to approve the amendments it proposes.

Western media widely reported Mud’s claims that almost 7.2 million people voted in the referendum — including almost 700,000 at polling stations in other countries including Spain.

However, with three separate questions on the ballot paper, that figure was for votes, not voters.

The actual voter turnout was just under 2.4 million, less than a third of the 7.7 million that gave the Mud a two-thirds majority in the National Assembly in December 2015.

Violent protests calling for regime change are still raging across Venezuela. On Tuesday investigative TV programme La Iguana released shocking video footage of Mud supporters beating and stoning the burned body of a motorcyclist they killed on Tuesday.

The victim, identified as Hector Amuello, was reportedly killed either by a mortar or a home-made bomb as he drove in the town of Lecheria in the eastern state of Anzoategui.

“RedFOX,” the Twitter user who posted the video said the “fascists” burned his body before stoning it.

RedFOX posted another video yesterday of a man set on fire by a petrol bomb thrown at the Altamira metro station in Caracas, before being pursued and beaten with a baton or pole.

The latest violence follows months of opposition protests which have claimed the lives of more than 90 people. Protesters are calling for Mr Maduro, who they hold responsible for Venezuela’s economic crisis, to step down.