A fugitive businessman accused of acting as a money launderer for Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s regime would not collaborate with the US, he said on Sunday, a day after he was extradited to the country from Cape Verde.
Maduro said in a televised address that Alex Saab’s extradition on Saturday was “one of the most ignoble and vulgar injustices that has been committed in recent decades.”
Authorities had held a rally in support of Saab earlier on Sunday in Caracas, during which his wife, Camilla Fabri, read aloud a letter from him.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“I will face my trial with total dignity,” Saab said in the letter. “I want to be clear: I do not have to collaborate with the United States. I have committed no crime.”
“I declare that I am in full possession of my means and I am not suicidal, in case I am murdered and then [they] say that I committed suicide,” he added.
Saab, a Colombian national, and his business partner, Alvaro Pulido, are charged in the US with running a network that exploited food aid destined for Venezuela, an oil-rich nation mired in an acute economic crisis.
They are alleged to have moved US$350 million out of Venezuela into accounts they controlled in the US and other countries. They face up to 20 years in prison.
The US Department of Justice said in a statement that Saab was yesterday to appear in court in Florida and expressed “admiration” to authorities in Cape Verde for their help in the case.
Saab, who also has Venezuelan nationality and a Venezuelan diplomatic passport, was indicted in July 2019 in Miami for money laundering, and was arrested during a stopover in Cape Verde off the coast of West Africa in June last year.
Venezuela’s opposition has said that Saab was doing shady dealings for the populist socialist regime of Maduro.
Venezuela responded by suspending talks with the US-backed opposition on ending the country’s political and economic crisis, which were to begin on Sunday in Mexico.
Venezuela’s opposition called on Maduro’s government to resume the talks to resolve their differences.
“We urge the other side to resume the sessions in Mexico as soon as possible to produce the necessary agreements,” Gerardo Blyde, head of the opposition team, told a news conference in Mexico City.
The meeting was to run until tomorrow.
“No person is more important than the Venezuelan people,” Blyde said, although he said there was a “new delay” in the negotiations, which began in August and are mediated by Norway.
Caracas is pushing for Western sanctions relief, while the opposition led by Juan Guaido wants guarantees of fair regional elections next month.
Neither Maduro, who is accused by the opposition of fraudulent re-election in 2018, nor Guaido, who is considered president by about 60 countries, is personally taking part in the talks.
The US has urged Maduro, a former bus driver who became president on the death of his mentor, former Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, in 2013, to make serious efforts toward holding elections if he wants sanctions relief.
Guaido said his “Unitary Platform” delegation went to Mexico City to “comply with the Venezuelan people,” and expressed its willingness to continue the talks.
“We had many expectations regarding this meeting. These expectations continue for the next one,” he said. “We want to be able to address in depth all the issues on the agenda, because only in this way will we be able to reach agreements that produce solutions for the country.”
Venezuela is in an unprecedented economic and political crisis that has led millions of people to leave the country.
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