President Nicolas Maduro talking about the immoral and illegal kidnapping of Venezuelan diplomat Alex Saab. Photo courtesy of Presidential Press.
This Sunday, October 18, the President of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, labeled the illegal extraction of Venezuelan diplomat Alex Saab to the United States as a “kidnapping.” This past Saturday, Saab was illegally flown out of Cape Verde to face a court in the US. International mobilizations and demonstrations are being taken in his favor. Maduro recalled the numerous actions that Saab carried out for the Venezuelan people in the most critical time of the US-imposed blockade.
“The food that arrived, which had an international label, was brought by Alex Saab, in silence” said the Venezuelan president. “And he did it out of love for our country. The gasoline that came to us at that difficult time, June-July of last year, was brought by Alex Saab. The medicines that arrived for diabetics, catastrophic diseases, cancer treatments, and for children, were brought by Alex Saab from various parts of the world. He was persecuted by the Colombian drug oligarchy in combination with the North American [US] government.”
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Maduro pointed out that Alex Saab was tortured by United States agents in Cape Verde. “They broke three teeth with a striking blow, they put electricity into him for days. They wanted to force him to lie and turn him into a monster,” Maduro said. “They wanted to turn him into a false accuser against the Bolivarian revolution, against me, against Venezuela—which he never accepted. He was about to die. Little by little he recovered. He fought a legal battle and won it for 491 days, upheld still yesterday (Saturday).”
“They declared his wife and two girls as ‘unwelcome people’ so that they could not enter Cape Verde to see him,” added President Maduro. “One of the worst injustices in the world, committed against Alex Saab Morán.”
International actions
Faced with the kidnapping of the diplomat, Venezuela “is moving in the United Nations and with human rights organizations” in rejection of the violation of international law. “We are moving at all levels. It is a very serious kidnapping for diplomatic law and we have to move in every way with great force to denounce it, ”said the Venezuelan president.
He described the kidnapping of the special envoy of Venezuela, Alex Saab, as “one of the most ignoble injustices that have been committed in the last decades in the world,” constituting a flagrant violation of the instruments of diplomatic protection by the US administration.
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“Yesterday they took him away,” noted President Maduro. “They went over everything, they beat him out of where he was, and they took him away without notifying the lawyers, the family or anyone. It is a kidnapping, no doubt about it, by the United States government against an international diplomat.”
He explained that it is the second kidnapping suffered by the Venezuelan diplomat Alex Saab, after the persecution of “the Colombian oligarchy in combination with the North American empire” led to his arbitrary detention in Cape Verde on June 12, 2020.
He explained that, during his kidnapping, the Cape Verdean authorities denied the visit of his wife Camilla Fabri and his young daughters, declaring them personas non gratas and preventing their entry into the territory of the former Portuguese colony.
The head of state, in this regard, reaffirmed that Venezuela will maintain “the fight for the truth, for the innocence and for the freedom of Alex Saab Morán.”
Featured image: President Nicolás Maduro speaking about the immoral and illegal kidnapping of Venezuelan diplomat Alex Saab. Photo courtesy of Presidential Press.
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
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