The United States offered a $25 million (£20 million) reward for information leading to the arrest of Nicolás Maduro on Friday, as the Venezuelan dictator was sworn in for a third term.

The Leftist autocrat took the presidential oath at the national assembly in Caracas in the names of 16th-century indigenous rebel leader Guaicaipuro and Hugo Chavez, the former president who died in 2013.

Chavez personally anointed Mr Maduro, a former bus driver, as his chosen successor as he was dying from cancer in 2012.

He has since presided over 12 years of economic collapse and the brutal repression of his critics.

“May this new presidential term be a period of peace, of prosperity, of equality and the new democracy,” said Mr Maduro as he vowed to uphold the Venezuelan constitution.