Charges of a plot to kill Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez may be full of holes, but they illustrate the type of accusations being made these days.

BY STEVEN DUDLEY

CARACAS - Even on its face, the plan seems farfetched:

Sneak 130 Colombian gunmen into Venezuela, in buses that would have to drive through many military checkpoints, train them on the farm of a well-known Miami-based radical, then attack the presidential palace and kill President Hugo Chávez.

Yet that is precisely what Venezuelan prosecutors say was afoot last May when police arrested more than 50 Colombians, unarmed but wearing camouflage uniforms, aboard two old school buses on a dirt road just outside Caracas.

Some of the questions surrounding the bizarre case may be answered at the military trial that started Wednesday for a retired Venezuelan army general, four National Guard officers and 103 Colombians. Prosecutors at the trial, expected to last several days, are seeking sentences of 17 years for the Colombians and 12 to 27 years for the Venezuelan officers.

But the many doubts that linger around the case nine months after the first arrests highlight an intriguing element of Venezuelan life these days -- the mix of plots, counterplots and paranoia that is creating a dangerous atmosphere of fear and retribution.

Some of it is justified. Since Chávez was elected in 1998, the leftist president has survived a coup, a general strike and a recall referendum. More than 100 people have been reported killed in political violence in the past three years, and untold numbers of others have been injured in street demonstrations. Explosions have hit two diplomatic missions in that time, and in November, prosecutor Danilo Anderson was killed in a mysterious carbombing.

INFLATED THREATS?

Yet Chávez critics say he has also manufactured or inflated the threats against him in order to bolster support for his government and prosecute his political enemies. Dozens of Chávez opponents face long jail sentences for their alleged roles in these multiple plots,

''For this government, anyone who is opposition is plotting a coup,'' said Armando Durán, a former foreign minister. ``We're in a world of half-lies and half-truths.''

The case of the Colombians is a perfect example. Within hours of their arrest, Chávez was branding them as right-wing paramilitary fighters from Colombia's civil war, recruited by his enemies to assassinate him.

Yet while trial case files examined by the Herald indicate that more than 100 Colombians were indeed on a farm near Caracas for several weeks, the documents provide few clues on exactly who put them there and why. The files also make no mention of any of the Colombians being paramilitary fighters.

In a deposition, José Luís Ovalle, a suspect from northeastern Colombia, says his odyssey started when a friend's boss said he needed farm hands in the capital city of Bogotá. Ovalle claims that he and two others hopped in a car a couple days later, but instead of going to Bogotá, the driver took them to a house in the Venezuelan border town of Ureña. There, a Colombian who called himself ''Jefferson'' took away their travel documents and threatened them and 15 other Colombians already in the house if they tried to escape.

After spending a week in the house, Ovalle claimed, the men were packed into buses and taken to Daktari, the Caracas farm of Robert Alonso, a Cuban exile who has lived in Venezuela for years and is known for his anti-Chávez activism. Alonso greeted them personally, Ovalle testified.

NO WEAPONS

Alonso's ''commanders'' split them into two groups, Ovalle claimed in his deposition, and they did military exercises with sticks but no weapons. They also watched videos of police entering homes and armed men assaulting buses, he said. When they disobeyed orders, they got a beating.

But their mysterious ''mission'' was never explained, Ovalle added. At least a dozen other detained Colombians told authorities much the same story, according to court records. They also identified the retired general and national guard officers charged in the plot, said defense lawyers who deny their clients committed any wrongdoing.

Daktari employees also made similar statements to prosecutors. Cook Aida Coromoto testified that owner Alonso ordered her and other workers to clean the farm's cabins in advance of the arrival of some ''Jehovah's Witnesses,'' then met with the employees after more than 100 young men arrived.

''He told us we couldn't go anywhere . . . or speak to anyone,'' she testified, adding that Alsono said he would kill them if they or their children tried to leave. At least three other farm hands recounted the same story to prosecutors.

Alonso declared his innocence and went into hiding after police arrested more than 50 unarmed Colombians May 9 aboard the two school buses near Daktari. Another 80 or so Colombians were later arrested elsewhere. Alonso has long had a website on which he trumpets the need to create ''anarchic chaos'' against Chávez and provoke a coup.

Still, the prosecutors' case against the six military officers and 103 Colombians who remain in custody -- some 15 minors were sent back to Colombia and others who collaborated were released -- is littered with inconsistencies.

No weapons were seized other than a 9mm pistol found on one of the arrested men. And even if the detainees' versions of a mysterious ''mission'' is true, it would be difficult to believe that they would have agreed to attack the presidential palace.

INCONSISTENCIES

The inconsistencies lead some to believe that the government invented the assassination plot to distract the public from Chávez's waning popularity at the time, while raising his profile as an assailed leftist revolutionary.

''How did the [Colombians] come through all those roadblocks without anyone stopping them?'' asked Carlos Bastidas, a lawyer for two of the National Guard officers. ``They obviously came with authorization . . . For what purpose? That's what the trial is going to show.''

In a pre-trial hearing in late January, one of the accused screamed that the whole case was a ''sham.'' The Colombians then started to bang on their chairs before court officials escorted them back to their holding cells.