BOUND and beaten, with multiple stab-wounds to the chest, the body of Robert Serra, a 27-year-old member of parliament for Venezuela’s ruling party, was found at his Caracas home on the night of October 1st. His female assistant, María Herrera, had also been stabbed to death. Even in a country with one of the world’s worst homicide rates, the brutal murder of Serra and Herrera caused public revulsion. But some were just as shocked that, almost before the blood was dry, many leading government spokesmen, including President Nicolás Maduro, were already attributing the crime to “hired killers” working for the opposition. Political assassination is extremely rare in Venezuela, despite the country’s bitter political polarisation between the followers of the late President Hugo Chávez and the opposition, mainly represented by the Democratic Unity (MUD) alliance. MUD leaders immediately condemned the murders and called off a planned demonstration to avoid stirring up animosity. As evidence for its claim, the government pointed to an opposition legislator’s remark in parliament, just days before the murder, that government members’ “days (were) numbered”. Diosdado Cabello, a bellicose former army officer who serves as president of the National Assembly, said he felt “threatened” and filed a complaint with prosecutors. The opposition member, who says he was referring to an electoral dénouement, has prudently asked for leave of absence.

President Maduro has twice vowed to present “within hours” the conclusions of police investigations which would supposedly vindicate his claim of an opposition plot. But even though two suspects, including one of the dead man’s bodyguards, have been arrested, the president has so far failed to fulfil his promise. With most of the media either in government hands or cowed into toeing the party line, crime reporters have been forced to tell the story in 140-character episodes. Thus far, it seems to be a saga of robbery and betrayal by insiders. Criminologists find the modus operandi hard to reconcile with the theory of a political “hit”. But the government, trailing badly in opinion polls with a crucial parliamentary election coming up next year, may feel the need to rally the troops by playing up the ruthless nature of “the enemy”.

A further twist to the tale came almost a week after the double murder, when the centre of Caracas was brought to a halt for several hours by a supposed gun-battle between police and what were officially described as “gang members” wanted for murder. Five of the latter died in the shoot-out, some of them allegedly executed by police. Their relatives and comrades, however, dismissed the accusation that they were crooks. Whatever their crimes may have been, what is clear is that they were members of the euphemistically named “collectives” , a term now virtually synonymous in Venezuela with groups of civilian gunmen working as enforcers for the government.

The most prominent of them, a former policeman by the name of José Odreman, appears to have been a close associate of Robert Serra, although police have denied that the incident had anything to do with the murder investigation. But Odreman had been filmed and photographed with many leading chavistas, including President Maduro himself. Speculation is now rife as to whether factions within the government are at odds over reining in the armed collectives, whose “social cleansing” activities are often combined with common crime and who may even have been involved in the Serra case. While the police, who answer to the interior minister, General Miguel Rodríguez Torres, may have good reason to disarm and neutralise gangsters—whatever their political allegiance—some government ministers continue to see the collectives as an essential element in the defence of the revolution. But such is the opacity of the regime, and so close to asphyxiation the independent press, that each fresh revelation only seems to further complicate an already tangled tale.