Venezuela ? President Hugo Chavez said Thursday that Venezuela is expelling a U.S. Navy officer for allegedly passing secret information from the Venezuelan military to the Pentagon and warned he will throw out all U.S. military attaches if further espionage occurs.

He also accused Navy Cmdr. John Correa of encouraging Venezuelan officers to consider overthrowing his government, which weathered a brief coup in April 2002.

The U.S. Embassy denied any of its military attaches had done anything wrong.

Venezuela’s accusations of espionage, which began last week, have heightened tensions in an already rocky relationship between Washington and Chavez’s government. Chavez, whose nation is a major supplier of oil to the United States, is an outspoken critic of U.S. economic policies.