Above Photo: Protest in Venezuela with people holding signs demanding the freedom of Venezuelan diplomat Alex Saab. FreeAlexSaab.org/File photo.
This Monday marked three years of Venezuelan diplomat Alex Saab’s illegal detention in a United States prison, in a case in which violations of international law and diplomatic conventions by the US regime stand out.
On June 12, 2020, Alex Saab was traveling to Iran on a diplomatic mission for the Venezuelan government to negotiate medical supplies and food for the Venezuelan people amid the crisis unleashed by the COVID-19 pandemic and the strengthening of illegal US and European sanctions.
The Venezuelan government plane Saab was traveling in stopped on Sal island in Cape Verde, an archipelago country off the West coast of Africa, to refuel before continuing on its route. However, Cape Verdean police officers illegally detained Saab at the request of an alleged international Interpol red alert, which was then issued with the wrong name one day after the arrest.
Alex Saab was traveling as a special envoy of the Venezuelan government, with diplomatic credentials granted by the Venezuelan Ministry of Foreign Affairs in April 2018 and ratified by the Iranian government. He is currently facing judicial persecution, also known as “lawfare,” for helping Venezuela circumvent the illegal sanctions imposed by the US and the European Union.
On Monday, 1,095 days after his kidnapping, Camilla Fabri Saab, the diplomat’s wife, said in an interview with RNV that the kidnapping of Alex Saab was the icing on the cake in the series of aggressions by the US empire against the Venezuelan people.
“I understood that the message was not only against Alex but against the entire Venezuelan people. The US was denying the right to food from the people going through a very difficult period with the pandemic and the sanctions. Alex risked everything to go on this mission to care for all the Venezuelan people,” said Fabri Saab, quoted by FuserNews.
Dossier of the first and second kidnapping
On October 16, 2021, one day before the Cape Verdean presidential elections were held with José Maria Neves as the winner, the government, then chaired by the questioned president Jorge Carlos Fonseca, handed over Ambassador Saab to the US regime under questionable legal proceedings. Since that day, Ambassador Saab has been detained in prison in Florida.
In June 2022, former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper explained the Donald Trump administration’s war against Venezuela in his book A Sacred Oath: Memoirs of a Secretary of Defense During Extraordinary Times, where he criticized the US military operation sending a US warship to Cape Verde just to pressure the handing over of Saab.
On Friday, December 9, 2022, US federal judge Robert Scola set a dangerous precedent by not recognizing the diplomatic immunity of Venezuela’s Special Envoy to Iran. On December 16, 2022, the National Assembly of Venezuela approved a draft agreement in defense of and respect for Alex Saab’s diplomatic status.
On December 23, 2022, Judge Scola determined that Venezuelan Special Envoy Alex Saab is not entitled to diplomatic immunity, using questionable arguments. That same day, Saab’s legal defense stated that they would appeal the decision and that “Alex Saab Morán is a special envoy who is the head of mission. As such, he is fully entitled to diplomatic immunity under the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.”
On January 26, 2023, the confession by former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in his book Never Give an Inch: Fighting for the America I Love came to light, confirming that the White House knew about Alex Saab’s diplomatic status.
In February, the vice president of the Tunisian League for Human Rights, Najat Zemmouri, stated that the US trial against the Venezuelan diplomat is “political rather than civil” and that Saab deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. In March 2023, British oncologist Karol Sikora asked the United Nations to guarantee medical attention to the Venezuelan diplomat urgently.
Earlier this month, British artist and human rights activist Roger Waters sent a public message to US President Joe Biden stating, “The whole world knows you are murdering Alex Saab.”
On March 16, 2023, Saab’s defense appealed the ruling of a federal court in Miami that denied him the right to diplomatic immunity in December before the Court of Appeal for the Eleventh Circuit in Georgia.
Humanitarian exchange
In recent months, US President Joe Biden’s government has made prisoner exchange agreements for humanitarian purposes with countries it labels as hostile for not submitting to US interests. Particularly noteworthy was the release of US basketball player Brittney Griner from Russian detention in exchange for the release of Russian citizen Viktor Bout from US detention at the end of 2022.
In this regard, the website The Grayzone published an article in December 2022 disclosing that the release of Alex Saab would take place through a “prisoner exchange” or the official recognition of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro by the US government.
Últimas Noticias by Kleybergel González, with Orinoco Tribune content and translation.