The President of Cape Verde defended the Constitutional Court after the decision which allowed the extradition of Alex Saab to the United States

The President of Cape Verde, Jorge Carlos Fonseca, defended the integrity of the Constitutional Court of his country after ruling in favor of the constitutionality of the extradition to the United States of the Colombian businessman Alex saab, leader of the dictator of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro.

“We are a very credible democratic rule of law and respected everywhere, given that one of its pillars is precisely our judicial system, ”Fonseca said in statements to Cape Verdean state media at the presidential palace in Praia, the capital of this West African island country.

“This system worked in this case, there was no interference by either the government or the President of the Republic, and there could not be. The Constitutional Court ruled with complete freedom, autonomy and independence“, Underlined the Head of State.

“The process took place in accordance with the Constitution and the laws of Cape Verde. I have always said that the state should comply with the decisions of the legal bodies that exercise and apply the law in Cape VerdeAdded Fonseca.

The president made these statements after Saab himself, detained in Cape Verde since June 2020 at the request of the United States, marked “incoherent“The judgment of the Constitutional Court.

A word from Alex Saab

“It’s badly written, badly argued and legally inconsistent“Saab said in a letter released by its legal team.

“Using the law for political ends (…) to be successful, the judges who apply it must have a certain inherent talent which, unfortunately, seems to be lacking in the many Cape Verdean judges who have sat down to judge me. the last 15 months, ”said the businessman.

“To put it simply, the result is legally deplorable.», Settled the figurehead.

The letter was made public hours after his lawyers issued a statement criticizing the Cape Verde High Court ruling, which they called “constitutional suicide”.

“This decision is an important moment in the constitutional history of this small African state, because it symbolizes the expiatory death of the rule of law so dear to Cape Verdeans, in the service of purely political interests according to an agenda dictated by Washington “, denounced the lawyer Femi Falana.

In a verdict published on the 7th, the court ruled “inadmissible” the appeal filed by Saab against the alleged unconstitutionality of his arrest to put an end to his extradition.

The Constitutional Court thus responded to the appeal in which Saab alleged, according to the court, that during the extradition procedure “unconstitutional rules applied”.

The court came to an agreement with two lower courts, the Barlavento Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court of Justice, which had already authorized in 2020 and last March, respectively, the delivery of Saab to the United States. .

In practice, the judgment of the Constitutional Court gives – except surprise or unforeseen – free passage to extradition, also approved by the Cape Verdean government itself last year.

Unsuccessful attempts to stop extradition

Until now, all legal attempts to stop its delivery to the United States were unsuccessful before the Cape Verdean courts, in a process in which the defense has consistently argued that it was “illegal” and that it was politically motivated.

The businessman was arrested on June 12, 2020 when his plane stopped to refuel at Amilcar Cabral International Airport on the Cape Verdean island of Sal, in response to a US request via Interpol for alleged money laundering, but the defense alleges that this alert was issued after arrest.

After his arrest, Venezuela insisted Saab is a Venezuelan citizen and a government “agent”, who is in transit in Cape Verde, for which his lawyers maintain that “he was entitled to the inviolability of his person as special envoy of Venezuela”.

The 49-year-old businessman’s name appeared in the media when the former Venezuelan prosecutor Luisa Ortega Diaz He accused him in 2017 of being one of the leading men of the Venezuelan president.

Saab, born in the Colombian city of Barranquilla and of Lebanese descent, is linked to several companies, including Group Grand Limited (GGL), accused of providing food and supplies with supplements to the Maduro administration.

According to US authorities, the businessman and three of Maduro’s stepchildren profited from these operations with “hundreds of millions of dollars”.

(With information from EFE)

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