Venezuelan Attorney General Tarek William Saab issuing statements to the press on Wednesday, July 31, 2024. Photo: Venezuelan Public Ministry.
The attorney general of Venezuela, Tarek William Saab, granted an exclusive interview to the Venezuelan journalist Eligio Rojas from the news outlet Ăšltimas Noticias. During the interview, AG Saab provided details about the violence promoted by Venezuela’s right-wing, US-backed opposition for two days when they claimed that fraud occurred in the presidential elections of July 28.
Below is the interview.
Rojas: Planned action or spontaneous protests on July 29 and 30?
Saab: It was an action progressively planned by this sector of the extreme right that blended, in a macro blender, all the failed experiences that Venezuela has lived in this front, a coup d’Ă©tat like the one that occurred on April 11 and 12, 2002, and the riots of 2003, with those of 2014 and 2017.
Rojas: So many experiences of violence…
Saab: Venezuela has been the most fertile testing ground for a super-powerful imperialist enemy which has claimed millions of Venezuelans as victims.
Rojas: You described this situation, before the National Defense Council, as a “hybrid war.”
Saab: I always speak of hybrid warfare because it includes coup attempts, lawfare, mass exodus of migrants, causing psychological warfare so that people leave their country in desperation, [and] sanctions to cause an implosion of the government and thereby bring about a change in the structures of the state.
Rojas: Where is the central command for these actions?
Saab: Since 2017, with the arrival of Donald Trump to the United States government and the imposition of sanctions, this whole mix of criminal actions from abroad came together to, by escalation, attempt to overthrow President Maduro.
Rojas: You speak of chaos as a key element for those seeking to overthrow President Maduro.
Saab: With the sanctions in 2017, they tried to create economic chaos to produce a mass exodus of millions of Venezuelans. We say that there are 2.5 million, which is already a significant number, and one million have returned. They have used that as a source of crisis, dividing families and blaming the state and not the sanctions.
Rojas: But before that situation in 2017, there was the temporary overthrow of President Chávez.
Saab: We have to say that Venezuela experienced a terrible crisis with the coup against Hugo Chávez, who was overthrown. He could have been assassinated, but the United States maintained a policy that I would say was more intelligent, despite that attempt that promoted the coup d’Ă©tat… to not escalate to what happened with Nicolás Maduro.
Rojas: In your speech, then, you spoke of hybrid warfare that includes psychological warfare. Does the lack of knowledge of the results of the presidential elections with the consequent publication of alleged voting records fall within that category? Could the decision taken by the Electoral Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice contribute to settling those doubts that were introduced with the publication of alleged voting records by those who present themselves as winners, specifically Edmundo González?
Saab: In my words before the National Defense Council and the Council of State, I recalled what the fraud of the 2023 primaries was, according to the interviews I did with JesĂşs MarĂa Casal (Primary Commission), with the technicians, they revealed that there were no more than 400,000 people there. I asked Casal where those records were, and he told me that they were burned the same day of the primary elections. I also asked him on which machines they counted the votes, and he told me that they were not even in the voting centers, but in the homes of the so-called groups that they were creating. He says: “I don’t know anything about that, those records were later counted by SĂşmate.”
Rojas: Who was responsible for that situation described by Casal?
Saab: The unnameable one, who has proclaimed herself leader. Today, Venezuelans hold her responsible for all these deaths, those who have been killed in situations that cannot be described as protests.
Rojas: That is to say, she (MarĂa Corina Machado) can be charged with homicide.
Saab: At any time, any of them could be held responsible as the masterminds behind all these events.
Rojas: Determiners (brains), as the Penal Code says.
Saab: Yeas.
Rojas: The Public Prosecutor’s Office has opened an investigation into the website launched by MarĂa Corina Machado posting alleged voting records containing the results of the presidential elections. How is this investigation progressing?
Saab: The website they posted is the same thing they did with the National Primary Commission and the SĂşmate mess, to say that instead of 300,000 people, two and a half million people voted in those primaries, JesĂşs MarĂa told me. I asked him why he registered a person (in those primaries) who was disqualified. He told me that it was blackmail, a mechanism of pressure, of extortion so that the Dialogue Table would be forced to withdraw the disqualification of MarĂa Corina Machado so that she could be a candidate.
Rojas: What do you think of these alleged records posted by Machado?
Saab: It is impossible that in all the voting records, they tell you that the percentage was 67% in favor of the opposition candidate, 30% against. Besides, all the signatures are identical, the minutes are scanned, blurred. The effect was to impact the mind and justify the protests, so to speak, because they are terrorist actions.
Rojas: This point was the subject of debate in the hearings of the Electoral Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice.
Saab: I was at all the hearings; there were representatives of Edmundo González’s parties, the president of the Unity Platform (PUD) and the MUD, both were there. I agreed to ask where the minutes were. They responded that SĂşmate had them. If you have the minutes, you show them; that is the ideal moment. Why didn’t you show them?
Rojas: Prosecutor, I do not want to miss the opportunity to ask you about a trial that the 41st Court of Caracas ordered against MarĂa Corina Machado in 2004 for conspiracy, due to her alleged connection with foreign entities to finance the recall of then President Hugo Chávez. We have not heard that this trial has been initiated. What do you know?
Saab: It is always the same modus operandi: using SĂşmate, fake signatures, I would now call them fake records… to, under the excuse of fraud, misuse an electoral opportunity that Venezuela provides you to conspire. That investigation, plus others that we have opened, the calls for police and military groups to rebel against the state, are ongoing.
Rojas: You asked the Supreme Court of Justice to determine whether the Popular Will (VP) party was a terrorist group. Have you received a response?
Saab: I have no doubt that everything they have done is linked to that. We have seen them acting here now. Why does Gilbert Caro appear? He was a deputy. Gilbert Caro was imprisoned for homicide; he facilitated the criminal actions of 2017 and was a repeat offender in 2019. And now, he appears calling this gangster, alias El Valle. There are several detainees there, including some officials.
Rojas: Police officers?
Saab: (Officials) from those prisons, linked to that system.
Rojas: [Prison] guards?
Saab: For all this that I am telling you. He (the gangster) betrayed him. I presented that evidence. As did the other one, alias “the Mouse.” All so that a bloodbath would be generated, a terrible climate would be created, and the world would be talking about it. Look at everything that the extreme right has done in England. Here, for example, minors under 12 and 13 years old are not accountable. In England… many minors are imprisoned. Look, here I have a summary, a 120-page summary of a 400-page document.
Rojas: On Wednesday, August 14, Ăšltimas Noticias published a summary of the 25 deaths and the circumstances in which these murders occurred.
Saab: The case, for example, of Alexander Aristiguieta Orta (43). He was shot down at 6:30 p.m. on San MartĂn Avenue, Capuchinos, and was part of the criminal and terrorist actions, being hit by a bullet and taken to a medical center, where he died.
Rojas: [Who was] responsible for that death?
Saab: It is presumed, from various videos taken from commercial premises in the area and VEN911 cameras, that the perpetrators of the crime are armed civilian groups that were there; hooded men on motorcycles belonging to the Jefrito and Los Boxeadores gang.
Rojas: According to our investigations, that person, Aristiguieta Orta, was there in Capuchinos with Jeison Grabriel España Guillén, 18 years old, also murdered at that time, Monday, July 29.
Saab: Yes. There is also this case, July 29, 7:30 p.m. Eudis Junior JosĂ© Mendoza Roget, 24 years old. He was in AntĂmano, adjacent to the Social Security. The victim was part of the violent events, where a series of shots were fired from different angles. One of those shots hit the victim, who was transferred to the PĂ©rez Carreño hospital, dying after his admission.
Rojas: Who is blamed for this crime?
Saab: The alleged perpetrators are also the same destabilizing groups, promoted by these instigators of hatred. The use of four 9 mm weapons and six 12-caliber weapons was determined.
Rojas: 10 weapons in that murder, or are they the ones used in that sector?
Saab: Four weapons were used…
Rojas: This person is from Las TejerĂas (Aragua), and had been in Chile and Colombia, according to the report we published on August 14.
Saab: You see!
Rojas: There were two murders in El Valle: Anthony Enrique GarcĂa Cañizales (20) and Olinger Montaño LĂłpez (24).
Saab: These deceased are attributable to the 70 gang, Cara de Niña and Platanero. Another deceased is Jeison Javier Bracho MartĂnez (22), responsible according to videos, motorcyclists, [and] passersby. Let us remember that they paid many motorcyclists to carry out these actions.
Rojas: Two soldiers have been killed.
Saab: Yes, among them is José Antonio Torrent Blanca, first sergeant of the Bolivarian National Guard (GNB), 26 years old. Alleged perpetrator, Reiner José Márquez Velásquez.
Rojas: That death occurred in Maracay.
Saab: Yes, that event occurred on July 29 at 6 p.m. Members of armed groups were present in different areas of the Girardot municipality, including BolĂvar Avenue in Maracay, where they fired their weapons at the GNB commission.
Rojas: There were six deaths in Maracay. People who tried to take over the Parachute Brigade.
Saab: 70% of the deaths occurred in the Metropolitan Area of ​​Caracas and in Aragua. There were two deaths in Carabobo.
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Rojas: Were these groups instructed to attack military and police establishments?
Saab: No doubt. This did not come out of nowhere, because in none of these so-called “protests”—I would call them violent actions of attacks on police stations, city halls, CNE headquarters, transport units—they burned 31 units, attacked metro stations, in just a day and a half. All of them are attributable to these extreme right-wing groups.
Rojas: Today, August 14, can we say that Venezuela has regained peace, or is violence still lurking around the corner?
Saab: I described a scenario in which Venezuela managed to stop this macabre plan in its tracks through institutional, civic, police, military and popular unity, [this plan] of wanting to turn us into what I already told you: an Iraq, a Libya, where they steal all our oil in exchange for absolute destruction, where chaos reigns. We have prevented that from happening, we have stopped it in its tracks. Venezuela is completely normal, particularly where there were more terrible actions in some sectors of the Metropolitan Area of ​​Caracas. Note one detail: the middle class did not come out to protest, either peacefully or violently. Their social base did not come out. To whom did they turn? To armed criminals. Venezuela has regained peace, it is getting stronger every day, we are fighting hard against this very powerful enemy.
(RedRadioVE) by Ana PerdigĂłn with Orinoco Tribune content
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/JRE/SL
