Costa Rica says plot to assassinate president uncovered

• Costa Rican intelligence officials reported Tuesday that a plot to assassinate President Rodrigo Chaves was disrupted just weeks before the February 1 general elections; a female suspect is under investigation after a confidential source revealed a hitman had been paid to target the president.
• The announcement coincides with a visit from El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele, who is joining Chaves on Wednesday to lay the foundation for a new $32 million "mega-prison" modeled after El Salvador's controversial high-security facilities to combat rising drug-related violence.

Costa Rica's government on Tuesday said it had uncovered a plot to assassinate President Rodrigo Chaves on the eve of national elections, in which his right-wing party is tipped for victory.

Jorge Torres, head of the Central American nation's Directorate of Intelligence and National Security, cited a "confidential source" as informing the agency that an assassin had been paid to kill Chaves.

Attorney General Carlo Diaz told reporters that a female suspect is being investigated and described her as "quite active on social media" but he gave no other details.

He said there was no evidence of a link to presidential and parliamentary elections set for February 1.

The popular Chaves, who is barred by the constitution from seeking a second consecutive term, has backed one of his former ministers, Laura Fernandez, to succeed him.

Fernandez is riding high in polls with a campaign to crack down hard on drug traffickers, blamed for a surge in violence in the picture-postcard Caribbean country.

Opposition groups have warned against possible interference in the election from the iron-fisted president of nearby El Salvador, Nayib Bukele.

Chaves has invited Bukele to Costa Rica to lay the cornerstone Wednesday of a new mega-prison modelled on El Salvador's brutal Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT).

Thousands of young men are being held without charge in CECOT, as part of Bukele's war on criminal gangs.

Several Venezuelans, who were deported from the United States to the facility last year, claimed upon their release that they were tortured.