Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez says his government would take legal action against Pat Robertson and potentially seek his extradition after the US evangelist called for Washington to assassinate the South American leader.
Mr Robertson, who later apologised for the remark, said he was expressing his frustration with Mr Chavez's constant accusations against the administration of President George W. Bush.
"I announce that my government is going to take legal action in the United States . . . to call for the assassination of a head of state is an act of terrorism." President Chavez said in a televised speech.
The fiery left-wing critic of President Bush's foreign policy who frequently charges the US government is plotting to kill him, called Mr Robertson "crazy" and a "public menace".
He said Venezuela could seek Mr Robertson's extradition under international treaties and take its claim to the United Nations if the Mr Bush administration did not act.
Mr Robertson, the founder of the Christian Coalition and a leader of the Christian right that has backed Mr Bush, said last Monday that if Mr Chavez "thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it."
US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said political assassination was against the law and was not US policy.
Relations between Mr Chavez and the United States, the top buyer of the Opec nation's oil, have deteriorated since the Venezuelan president survived a brief 2002 coup he says was backed by US authorities.
Washington says it is not plotting to kill the Venezuelan president and denies involvement in the coup.
Mr Chavez said on Friday that President Bush would be to blame if anything happened to him. In the past, he has said Venezuela, the world's fifth-largest oil exporter, would cut sales to the United States if he was assassinated.
A close ally of communist Cuba, Mr Chavez presents his self-proclaimed revolution as an alternative to US policies in the region.
Washington says Mr Chavez is a negative influence who uses oil profits to fund anti-democratic groups in South America while becoming more authoritarian at home.