Sleuths quiz author of puzzle over crossword 'plot'

Caracas: Government critics, and even some supporters, are ridiculing a state television host's allegation that a newspaper crossword puzzle may have had a hidden call for a plot to kill President Hugo Chavez's elder brother.

Intelligence agents questioned the author of the puzzle after state TV presenter Miguel Perez Pirela pointed out that Wednesday's crossword contained the word ‘Asesinen', or kill, intersecting with the name of Chavez's brother, ‘Adan.'

He noted they were below the word ‘Rafagas', meaning either gusts of wind or bursts of gunfire.

Neptali Segovia, an English teacher who has prepared crossword puzzles for the newspaper Ultimas Noticias for 17 years, said it was nonsense to think there was a hidden code in the puzzle. He told the newspaper that he went voluntarily to be questioned on Thursday after intelligence agents showed up at the paper asking about him.

"I have nothing to hide," Segovia said in an article published on Friday.

Raging debate

Other programmes on state television echoed Perez's concerns, but some government supporters questioned the theory in messages on Twitter.

Nestor Francia, a poet and writer who favours Chavez's socialist government, went further, posting a critical article on the pro-Chavez website aporrea.org.

"The complaint of a supposed hidden message in the crossword puzzle of Wednesday's Ultimas Noticias doesn't at all lend weight to our credibility in terms of the right's conspiratorial plans," Francia wrote.

"We should once against make a call to be serious and responsible with what we say in the public media," he added.

Opposition charges

Jose Vicente Carrasquero, a political science professor at Venezuela's Simon Bolivar University, said on Saturday that the government is making "generic accusations like these against the opposition to avoid having the electoral campaign fall into pertinent issues", such as rampant violent crime and 24 per cent inflation.

Opposition politicians have dismissed talk of plots by Chavez adversaries as hogwash.

Opposition lawmaker Julio Borges said the latest accusation of a hidden plot in a crossword seems to be an attempt to distract from other issues ahead of the October 7 presidential election.

"This is another smoke screen," he said.