Neither Caracas nor Washington have explained the situation of the Colombian businessman and alleged figurehead of Nicolás Maduro.
Businessman Alex Saab, considered the figurehead of the president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, will serve a year in prison in the United States on October 16 without a date for the start of his trial for money laundering and amid speculation about whether it is the subject of negotiations between the two countries.
The start of the trial of this businessman of Lebanese origin born in Colombia and nationalized Venezuelan for money laundering conspiracy was initially scheduled for this Tuesday, October 11, but was postponed without a date.
It is unknown if those who proclaimed a year ago that Saab was going to reveal Maduro’s secrets to the US authorities were right, since nothing has come to light in this regard.
However, some interesting things have been known since October 16, 2021, such as that Saab cooperated with the US for a year in a “proactive” way giving information about his illicit activities and contracts with the government of Venezuela and that he was going to turn himself in to the US Justice.
The documents further indicate that in 2016, represented by an American and a Colombian attorney, Saab met with DEA and FBI agents in Bogota.
A tangled and delayed trial
Until now, the process against Saab is focused on elucidating whether, as the defense alleges, he held a position in Venezuela with diplomatic immunity, which, if accepted by the court headed by Judge Robert N. Scola, could free him from trial.
Last May, a US appeals court. rejected an appeal on the immunity argument advanced by Saab and referred the case to the trial court in Miami.
Saab, 50, was extradited to the US on October 16, 2021 from Cape Verde, a former Portuguese colony in West Africa where he was arrested in 2020 following an international arrest warrant requested by the US justice .
According to the indictment, between 2011 and at least 2015, Saab and his partner Álvaro Pulido, who is at large, conspired with others to launder the proceeds of a network of corruption based on bribes aimed at obtaining contracts to carry out public projects and fraud against the foreign exchange control system in Venezuela.
Saab and Pulido are accused of transferring from Venezuela, through the US, approximately $350 million to accounts they owned or controlled in other countries, according to the Prosecutor’s Office.
The businessman pleaded “not guilty” in November 2021 and faces a sentence of about 20 years.
On February 28, President Maduro said in a virtual intervention before the United Nations Human Rights Council that the Saab trial in the US “is riddled with serious vices and aberrant distortions.”
The “kidnapping” of Saab was the reason that the Venezuelan government gave for suspending in October of last year the dialogue that it held in Mexico with the opposition.
guesses and changes
In the year since Saab’s arrival in Miami there have been some signs of a rapprochement between the United States and Venezuela.
In May, the government of President Joe Biden announced that, at the request of the Venezuelan opposition, it was going to withdraw some economic sanctions against Venezuela, to allow the oil company Chevron to negotiate with the state-owned PDVSA “the terms of possible future activities” in the country. south american
However, Washington made it clear that this measure “will not entail any increase in the income of the scheme” and that it does not entail a change in policies regarding Venezuela and warned that he was willing to tighten sanctions against that country if he sees reasons for it.
On October 1 came the surprise of the release of two nephews of Maduro’s wife, Cilia Flores, who had been sentenced to 18 years in prison for drug trafficking in the US, which were exchanged for seven Americans imprisoned without trial in Venezuela.
The Venezuelan exiles in the US shouted to the heavens for that decision that the Biden government called “difficult” and “painful“.
In addition, some opponents said that Saab was really the one Maduro wanted back home, such as Gustavo Tarre, Juan Guaidó’s OAS representative, whom he The US considers interim president of Venezuela since 2018.
In an interview published by Miami’s Diario de las Américas, Tarre, who was prevented from participating in the recent OAS meeting in Lima, said that the Maduro government proposed to the US the release of all political prisoners in Venezuela in exchange for Alex Saab.
According to the Voice of America, a US government broadcaster, an official who spoke anonymously to journalists after the release of Maduro’s nephews on October 1 was asked if the release of Alex Saab was considered and replied to put the question to the Department of Justice.
Source: EFE