Venezuela rejects Obama comments on arrested US film-maker Tim Tracy

Venezuela's government has rejected comments by Barack Obama about the country's political crisis and the arrest of a US film-maker, accusing Washington of being behind violence that has followed the recent presidential election.

During his visit to Latin America, Obama said the allegations against documentary film-maker Tim Tracy, 35, were "ridiculous."

But Venezuela's interior minister, Miguel Rodríguez Torres, has insisted that intelligence agents tracking Tracy since late 2012 had uncovered ample evidence he was plotting with militant anti-government factions to destabilise the country.

"When you want to do intelligence work in another country, all those big powers who do this type of spying, they often use the facade of a film-maker, documentary-maker, photographer or journalist," Rodríguez Torres told state TV. "Because with that facade, they can go anywhere, penetrate any place."

Obama's comments about Tracy, as well as others' questions about President Nicolás Maduro's democratic credentials after last month's disputed election, have infuriated the Caracas government and revived accusations of "imperialist meddling".

Late on Saturday, Maduro's government issued a formal protest note. In a remark reminiscent of predecessor Hugo Chávez's tirades against US leaders, Maduro described Obama as the "grand chief of devils".

Maduro, a 50-year-old former bus driver who rose to be foreign minister and vice-president, has alternately railed against Washington and offering dialogue with the US.

"I think he actually wants to improve relations with the north, but because he's vulnerable domestically right now, he needs to revive the old blood-and-thunder rhetoric to shore up support," said a western diplomat in Caracas.

The Tracy case is a crucial test of Maduro's intentions towards a country that remains the main export market for Venezuelan oil despite years of political hostility between Caracas and Washington.

Friends and family of Tracy, who was a director and producer at Los Angeles-based Freehold Productions according to his LinkedIn web profile, say he became passionately interested in Venezuelan politics and had excellent relations on both sides.

Rodríguez Torres, however, countered that Tracy had "disguised himself" as pro-Chávez for credibility in some circles. About 500 videos of the film-maker, and email exchanges between him and opposition activists, proved he was in the middle of plotting violence with students, the minister added.

"In those videos, those radical, fascist kids ask the 'gringo' for dollars," he said.

US diplomats have still not been able to visit Tracy in prison, where he awaits formal charges after being arrested in late April.