MIAMI: Venezuelas socialist government said it would suspend negotiations with its opponents in retaliation for the extradition to the U.S. of a close ally of President Nicols Maduro to face money laundering charges.
Jorge Rodrguez, who has been heading the governments delegation, said his team wouldnt travel to Mexico City for the next scheduled round of negotiations.
The announcement capped a tumultuous day that saw businessman Alex Saab placed on a U.S.-bound plane in Cape Verde after a 16-month fight by Maduro and his allies, including Russia, who consider the Colombian-born businessman a Venezuelan diplomat.
A few hours after Saab’s extradition blew up Venezuelan social media, six American oil executives held on house arrest were picked up by security forces a sign that relations between Washington and Caracas could be upended after months of quiet diplomacy since Joe Biden entered the White House. Families of the men known as the Citgo 6 for the Houston subsidiary of Venezuela’s state-owned oil company where they worked fear they could be thrown back into jail.
The fact that Mr. Saab is in the US before my father is a disgrace,” said Cristina Vadell, whose father, Tomeu Vadell, is among the Americans serving out long sentences in the country on what the U.S. government considers trumped-up charges. This is additional proof that these Americans are held hostage in Venezuela, and President Bidens administration needs to recognize this and win their release immediately.
Saab, 49, was arrested in the African archipelago while making a stop on the way to Iran for what Maduros government later described as a diplomatic humanitarian mission that gives him immunity from prosecution.
He quickly became a revolutionary rallying cry, with Venezuela’s government saying months after his arrest that the low-profile businessman had been appointed earlier a representative to the African Union credentials whose authenticity and relevance U.S. prosecutors have questioned.
Rodrguez, standing in front of a sign reading Free Alex Saab, blasted what he said was a brutal aggression on the part of a U.S. government that has been trying for years without success to oust Maduro. He said the Venezuelan government would denounce his illegal extraction in multilateral forums and in protest wouldn’t partake in the next round of negotiations, although he stopped short of saying the government would abandon the talks altogether.
The Government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela deplores this serious violation against the human rights of a Venezuelan citizen, who is invested as a diplomat and as a representative of our country to the world, the Maduro government said in a statement. This fact sets a dangerous precedent for international law.
American authorities have been targeting Saab for years, believing he can unlock the mystery of how Venezuela has been selling gold and tankers full of crude oil in violation of U.S. sanctions. They also believe he holds numerous secrets about how Maduro, the president’s family and his top aides siphoned off millions of dollars in government contracts for food and housing amid widespread hunger in oil-rich Venezuela.
Federal prosecutors in Miami indicted Saab in 2019 on money-laundering charges connected to an alleged bribery scheme that pocketed more than $350 million from a low-income housing project for the Venezuelan government.
Separately, Saab had been sanctioned by the previous Trump administration for allegedly utilizing a network of shell companies spanning the globe in the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Hong Kong, Panama, Colombia and Mexico to hide huge profits from no-bid, overvalued food contracts obtained through bribes and kickbacks.
Some of Saabs contracts were obtained by paying bribes to the adult children of Venezuelan first lady Cilia Flores, the Trump administration alleged. Commonly known in Venezuela as Los Chamos, slang for the kids, the three men are also under investigation by prosecutors in Miami for allegedly forming part of a scheme to siphon $1.2 billion from Venezuelas state-owned oil company, two people familiar with the U.S. investigation told The Associated Press.
But while in private U.S. officials have long described Saab as a front man for Maduro, he is not identified as such in court filings.
The previous Trump administration had made Saabs extradition a top priority, at one point even sending a Navy warship to the African archipelago to keep an eye on the captive.
On Saturday. Colombian President Ivn Duque lauded the extradition of Saab, calling it a triumph in the fight against drug trafficking, money laundering and corruption led by the dictatorship of Nicols Maduro.
However, the Biden administration has downplayed the importance of Saab’s problems, saying he can defend himself in U.S. courts and that his case shouldn’t affect the ongoing negotiations being sponsored by Norway aimed at overcoming Venezuela’s long running economic crisis and political tug of war.
The families of nine Americans jailed in Caracas are less hopeful that Saab’s legal troubled can be disentangled from the furtive attempts at a dtente.
In addition to the Citgo 6 who were sentenced last year to long prison sentences over a never-executed plan to refinance billions in the oil company’s bonds they include former U.S. Marine Matthew Heath, who is being held on weapons charges tied to a supposed plan to sabotage refineries, and two former Green Berets Caracas tied to a failed crossborder raid from Colombia to overthrow Maduro.
___
AP Writer Jorge Rueda contributed to this report from Caracas, Venezuela.
Follow Goodman on Twitter: @APJoshGoodman
Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor
Read all the Latest News , Breaking News and IPL 2022 Live Updates here.
Comments
0 comment