Venezuela: Arrested one of the "loudest" opposition members

Caracas Mayor Antonio Ledezma, one of the most vocal opposition leaders, was arrested after being accused of being involved in a coup attempt.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said Ledezma would be punished for trying to cause unrest in the country, which has fallen into a major economic crisis.

Ledezma will have to answer "for all his crimes," Maduro said in a speech broadcast by television and radio stations across the country.

More than a dozen people in masked uniforms broke into the capital's mayor's office on Thursday and forcibly took him out of the building.

As the news of the arrest spread through the city, people spontaneously started banging pots on windows and drivers honking their horns. Several dozen people gathered in the evening outside the secret police headquarters, where Ledezma is believed to be.

Maduro last week once again accused Ledezma, as well as other critics of the government and Western powers, of plotting a coup.

Ledezma rejected such accusations, pointing out that government corruption is the real destabilizing force in Venezuela.

The US rejected the claim of a planned coup as "baseless and false" and assessed that the government's goal was to divert attention from accumulated economic problems.

The mayor of Caracas was arrested amid heightened tensions marking the anniversary of the start of weeks of anti-government street protests that left more than 40 people dead.

Ledezma, together with other opposition leaders, called for a national agreement on the establishment of a transitional government in order to save Venezuela from a "humanitarian crisis".

Yesterday, President Maduro called that call a political mask under which his opponents are planning a coup d'état.

Ledezma's allies called for new protests today with a request for his release from prison. Human Rights Watch also called for the release of Ledezma.