The Maduro government announced on Saturday that it would not attend this meeting after Saab, a Colombian businessman with Venezuelan nationality, was extradited to the United States, which accuses him of laundering money for Chavismo. Maduro had tried to add him to the entourage that seeks to resolve the serious political and economic crisis, which has pushed some five million Venezuelans to emigrate.
It is a “profound expression of our protest against the brutal aggression” against Saab, Jorge Rodríguez, head of Parliament and the official delegation, said in Caracas.
Saab, 49, will appear in Florida court today, the United States Department of Justice reported.
In statements to international media, Manuel Pinto Monteiro, a Saab lawyer, described the extradition as illegal, considering that the process in Cape Verde was not fully carried out. Venezuela called the procedure a “kidnapping” of its “ambassador”, since Saab received Venezuelan nationality and a diplomatic title while he was imprisoned in the African country.
For his part, the opposition leader Juan Guaidó, recognized as the president in charge of Venezuela by 60 countries, celebrated the extradition. “Venezuelans, who have seen justice hijacked for years, support and celebrate the justice system of democratic countries like Cape Verde, a nation we recognize for its independence and firmness in the midst of so much pressure,” he wrote on Twitter, lamenting the decision of the government to get up from the table.
Saab and his partner Álvaro Pulido, whose whereabouts are unknown, are accused in the United States of running a network that exploited a food subsidy system in Venezuela.
According to Washington, they transferred some 350 million dollars outside of Venezuela to accounts they controlled in the United States and other countries and risk being sentenced to 20 years in prison. Saab was indicted in July 2019 in Miami for money laundering and arrested in June 2020 during a plane stopover in Cape Verde.
Cape Verde’s highest court authorized last month to hand over Saab to the United States, after all judicial remedies have been exhausted.
Torture
The Venezuelan government fought tirelessly for the release of Saab, who denounced “mistreatment and torture” during his detention in Cape Verde, and called for a march in central Caracas. “Alex Saab, kidnapped by the empire,” says the pamphlet accompanied by a photo of the businessman.
“Never before has Chavismo done so much for someone,” explained Roberto Deniz, a journalist for the Armando.info site, who wrote exhaustively about the Saab case and about who an arrest warrant weighs in Venezuela for “instigation of hatred.”
The former attorney general of Venezuela Luisa Ortega has cataloged him as “the main figurehead of the autocracy” of Maduro and his family, and assured on Saturday that his extradition “is an achievement for those of us who seek justice against those responsible for the tragedy and chaos that they are experiencing. the Venezuelans”.
After the extradition was confirmed, the authorities revoked a house-to-jail measure against six former oil executives serving time in Venezuela for corruption and took them to an unknown prison. Although the measure is not officially related, five of them have US nationality and the other, permanent residence in that country.
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