The president of the National Assembly elected in 2020, Jorge Rodríguez, rejected this Thursday the reports published a day earlier in which it is ensured that the businessman Alex Saab, alleged figurehead of Nicolás Maduro, had acted as a confidant of the United States Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). He denounced that he suffered savage torture during his detention in Cape Verde.
“Now they take this out of Alex Saab, if so, why did they remove his teeth by savagely beating him there in Cape Verde? Why did they torture him? Why do they keep him in inhumane conditions in a prison?” Rodríguez said in a Press conference held at the seat of Parliament.
Rodríguez questioned this possibility, since “the United States knows very well how it treats its spies.” He said it would be “strange” for Saab to have collaborated with the DEA given that they “savagely tortured” him.
Rodríguez’s words are Venezuela’s response to the material declassified by the judge of the Southern District of Florida, Robert Scola, responsible for the case once morest Saab for a crime of conspiracy to launder money, in which it is ensured that the Colombian-Venezuelan businessman would have collaborated with the DEA for at least a year before being arrested in June 2020 in Cape Verde.
Until now, this information had not been revealed due to the possibility that by doing so the life of Saab’s wife, Camilla Fabri, would be at risk. However, Judge Scola decided to declassify her following the woman refused to leave Venezuela and go to the assistance services of the United States.
Saab assures that Chavismo knew it
For its part, Saab, through its lawyer, David Kivkin, cleared up “in the strongest possible way” that any interaction he had with the Department of Justice and other US authorities was done with “the full knowledge and support” of Venezuela.
In that sense, “the sole purpose” of these meetings “was to confirm that neither he nor the companies associated with him had done anything wrong.” He criticized the use they made of this disclosure, since “it is nothing more than an attempt to harm the interests of Venezuela” and “the solidity of the relationship” that it maintains with the country.
“Alex Saab remains a loyal citizen and diplomat of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. He will never do anything that harms the interests of the nation and the people that he has given so much to, “says a statement.
#EnVideo| Pdte. of the AN, @jorgerpsuv offered his opinion on Venezuelan diplomat Aleex Saab.
#ResistIsProduce pic.twitter.com/5Wc3MoLZC4
— VTV CHANNEL 8 (@VTVcanal8) February 17, 2022
