Venezuela: Maduro’s regime proposed to include Alex Saab in the peace negotiations in Mexico

The President of the National Assembly of Venezuela, Jorge Rodríguez, on Tuesday proposed the incorporation of the special envoy of the regime of Nicolás Maduro, Alex Saab, at the negotiating table with the opposition taking place in Mexico, in a new maneuver to try to avoid his extradition to the United States.

In statements from the Federal Legislative Palace, Rodríguez also indicated that they wanted Saab be a member of the National Council of Social Services.

Alex Saab, leader of the Venezuelan dictator, is held in Green cap.

“He is kidnapped in violation of the Vienna Convention because he is a duly accredited diplomat, without a warrant for his arrest, without the right to due process, ”Rodríguez said.

Soon they will advise Norway, Russia and the The Netherlands on the decision to include it at the negotiating table.

The arrest of Alex Saab

The figurehead, 49, waits for Cape Verde’s Constitutional Court, the country’s highest court, to rule on his extradition in response to appeals for the alleged “unconstitutionality” of his detention.

Saab was arrested on June 12, 2020 when its plane stopped for refueling at Amilcar Cabral International Airport on the island of Sal, responding to a request from the United States. issued through Interpol for alleged money laundering offenses, but the defense alleges that this alert was issued after the arrest.

After his arrest, Venezuela stressed that Saab is a Venezuelan citizen and an “agent” of the government, what was “in transit“In Cape Verde, that’s why its lawyers support this”He was entitled to personal inviolability as Venezuela’s special envoy”.

The businessman’s name appeared in the media when former Venezuelan prosecutor Luisa Ortega Díaz accused him in 2017 of being one of the Venezuelan president’s straw men.

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

According to the United States, the businessman and Maduro’s three stepchildren profited from the transactions with “hundreds of millions of dollars.”

Dialogue for peace

The negotiations, promoted by Norway, will resume in a third stage from September 24 to 27 in Mexico, where they have been negotiating since a first visit from August 13 to 15, when they signed a memorandum of understanding to agree on a common agenda.

Gerardo Blyde, the leader of the opposition negotiators, announced that the issue of the democratic reinstitutionalization of Venezuela will be discussed with a view to having a “Independent sovereign judiciary which can decide without political interference.”

Likewise, he asserted that: “In Venezuela there is no democracy,” he insisted that if a rapid separation of powers is not achieved, it will not be possible to achieve “even economic growth. “.

With this process, in which Mexico participates as a facilitating seat, opposition calls for “free” elections in the regional elections of November 21, when the dictator Nicolás Maduro wants the lifting of international sanctions.

Despite the advances, Blyde told reporters that as part of the talks, deals will be made “bit by bit” and after discussing the issues “in depth”, so that “false expectations” are not fueled.

“We have not yet reached the stage of all political prisoners who exist in Venezuela, or exiled, or persecuted, this is an item on the agenda. When we talk about restitution of rights, this is the number 1 item on the agenda “, argued the lawyer.

The antecedent of the FARC and Simón Trinidad

This is not the first time that such a request has been made. In 2012, The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) have appointed guerrilla warrior Simón Trinidad as a member of the negotiating team in peace talks with the government.

The leader of the West Indian bloc of the FARC, whose real name is Juvenal Ovidio Ricardo Palmera Pineda, was the first high-ranking member of the guerrilla to be captured. In 2004, he was arrested in Quito, Ecuador, from where he was extradited to Colombia on charges of murder and kidnapping.. The same year, he was extradited to the United States, where he was sentenced in 2008 to 60 years in prison for having participated in the kidnapping of three Americans in 2003.

Although he is in prison, the FARC appointed him as one of their delegates in the open peace process with the government of President Juan Manuel Santos.

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