[News] Forbes Reveals Why the US Government Is Trying to Extradite Venezuelan Diplomat Alex Saab

[Anti-Imperialist News]

counterpunch.org 
<https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/10/06/forbes-reveals-why-the-us-government-is-trying-to-extradite-venezuelan-diplomat-alex-saab/> 



  Forbes Reveals Why the US Government Is Trying to Extradite Venezuelan
  Diplomat Alex Saab

by Roger Harris <https://www.counterpunch.org/author/roger-harris-2/>- 
October 6, 2021
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Photograph Source: United States Department of the Treasury – Public Domain

Alex Saab is “the key that unlocks the Venezuelan monetary mystery—that 
is, how a country facing sanctions from the US, the UK and the European 
Union—is still able to export things like gold and oil…and really the 
only man who can actually explain how the country [Venezuela] survives 
today,” according to /Forbes/ 
<https://www.forbes.com/sites/daviddawkins/2021/10/01/money-man-for-venezuelaaccused-of-looting-billionsnears-extradition-to-the-us/?sh=63689e536a5f>/./

The US would far prefer to just quietly extradite Saab to Miami, use 
whatever means necessary to extract sensitive information from him, and 
then warehouse him in the world’s largest prison system 
<https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2018/07/31/the-unitd-states-is-the-largest-prison-camp-in-the-world/>. 
/Forbes /uses the euphemism “under pressure” by US prison authorities as 
the means to force Saab to “shed light on Venezuela’s post-sanction 
economic network.” Saab already reports that his surrogate captors in 
Cabo Verde, described below, have unsuccessfully employed torture to try 
to break his will and induce him to betray Venezuela.

That an elite business magazine such as /Forbes /is featuring a diplomat 
from a country aspiring to become socialist is a testament to the 
growing international movement to free the imprisoned Alex Saab and an 
indication of the weakness of the US case against him.

*The arrest of a diplomat*

Saab is fighting what Canadian lawyer John Philpot, an expert on 
international law, calls “a flagrant attempt of extra-territorial 
judicial overreach by the US.”

On June 12, 2020, Saab was on a mission as a special envoy of the 
Venezuelan government to procure food, fuel, and medicines from Iran, 
when his plane from Caracas to Tehran was diverted to Cabo Verde for a 
fueling stop. Saab’s arrest and subsequent detention 
<https://popularresistance.org/us-compels-small-african-country-to-imprison-venezuelan-diplomat/> 
at the bidding of the US is arbitrary, illegal, and irregular. Further, 
Saab has been denied treatment 
<https://en.ultimasnoticias.com.ve/news/politics/cabo-verde-impide-atencion-medica-a-alex-saab/> 
for his cancer condition.

Saab, the deputy Venezuelan ambassador to the African Union, is fighting 
extradition to the US for the “crime” of trying to procure humanitarian 
supplies in violation of illegal US sanctions 
<https://truthout.org/articles/us-sanctions-are-deadly-illegal-and-ineffective/>. 
To date, Saab’s legal appeals 
<https://www.dropbox.com/s/yd9txlpot2vbd8m/Philpot%20Saab%20Good%20Governance%20Paper.pdf?dl=0> 
to Cabo Verdean authorities for freedom have been either denied, 
rejected, or ignored.

Under the Vienna Convention, a credentialed diplomat such as Saab has 
absolute immunity 
<https://legal.un.org/ilc/texts/instruments/english/conventions/9_1_1961.pdf> 
from arrest, even in the time of war. Saab appealed to the US 11^th 
Circuit Court on the basis of his diplomatic status. In response, 
Washington filed an application for an extension to reply in a legal 
delaying tactic to allow Saab’s pending extradition without recognizing 
his diplomatic immunity. It is as if the US empire is claiming the 
authority to qualify who other countries may choose and receive as their 
ambassadors.

Consider, however, that the US government still does not recognize the 
democratically elected Nicolás Maduro as the legitimate president of 
Venezuela. In contradiction of the United Nations and almost every other 
country 
<http://peoplesdispatch.org/2021/01/07/european-union-will-no-longer-recognize-juan-guaido-as-president-of-venezuela/> 
in the world, Joe Biden 
<https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/01/20/pure-sadism-biden-blasted-continuing-trumps-recognition-guaido-coup-regime-and> 
continues to claim that the Trump-anointed, US security asset 
<https://thegrayzone.com/2019/01/29/the-making-of-juan-guaido-how-the-us-regime-change-laboratory-created-venezuelas-coup-leader/> 
Juan Guaidó is Venezuela’s “interim” head of state.

*The US case against Alex Saab*

The US alleges Saab culpable of fraud and money laundering to bilk the 
Venezuelan people who are, in fact, under siege by the US. Specifically, 
the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control 
accuses <https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sm741> Saab of 
“loot[ing] hundreds of millions of dollars from starving Venezuelans.” 
One would think that Saab would be given a Presidential Medal of Freedom 
<https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/campaign/medal-of-freedom> for his 
efforts, given that the US policy of promoting regime change in 
Venezuela is doing precisely the same thing 
<https://2017-2021.state.gov/venezuela-related-sanctions/index.html> as 
Saab is being accused.

The US and its sycophantic allies have imposed unilateral coercive 
measures 
<https://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/AdvisoryCommittee/Pages/UnilateralCoerciveMeasures.aspx> 
on Venezuela that amount to a blockade 
<https://peoplesdispatch.org/2019/05/09/what-you-should-know-about-the-us-blockade-of-venezuela/>through 
the use of secondary sanctions 
<https://www.cnas.org/publications/reports/sanctions-by-the-numbers-u-s-secondary-sanctions>. 
The UN has repeatedly called such collective punishment 
<https://nacla.org/news/2019/08/15/washington-intensifies-its-collective-punishment-venezuelans> 
illegal and has demanded their repeal 
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/15157>. Some three dozen countries 
and one third of humanity are suffering under US sanctions 
<https://sanctionskill.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/SanctionsReport_v1-compressed.pdf>.

Largely due to the sanctions, the Venezuelan economy has drastically 
contracted 
<https://www.perild.com/2021/09/15/un-rapporteur-advocates-immediate-suspension-of-economic-sanctions-against-venezuela/>, 
especially after the targeting of its oil sector 
<https://torinocap.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Sanctions-and-Vzlan-Economy-June-2019.pdf>, 
which is its major source of foreign earnings. Attempts by the 
Venezuelan government to access its own gold reserves 
<https://orinocotribune.com/venezuelan-gold-seized-by-the-bank-of-england-british-court-accepts-guaidos-appeal/> 
held abroad or to use its drawing rights from the International Monetary 
Fund <https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/15184> to pay for COVID relief 
<https://dissidentvoice.org/2020/04/coronademic-venezuelas-drives-obstructed/> 
have been blocked at the behest of the US government. The Venezuelan oil 
company subsidiary in the US, CITGO 
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14609>, has been appropriated by 
Washington. Venezuela’s bank accounts 
<https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/venezuela-s-guaido-taps-152-million-of-frozen-funds-in-the-u-s/ar-BB1fWYfC> 
abroad have been frozen and looted by the US and its allies. Western 
Union 
<https://talcualdigital.com/western-union-suspende-envio-de-remesas-a-venezuela-pese-a-tener-licencia-para-operar/> 
has suspended money transfers to Venezuela. And third-country ships 
carrying supplies to Venezuela have been seized by the US in blatant 
acts of piracy 
<https://www.rt.com/news/497980-us-seize-iranian-ships-wsj/> on 
international waters. The result has been widespread misery and even 
death 
<https://therealnews.com/un-rapporteur-us-sanctions-cause-death-in-venezuela> 
in Venezuela.

*The real reasons for the US extradition effort on Alex Saab*

David Dawkins, the /Forbes/ staff author of the article on Saab, uses 
the byline 
<https://www.forbes.com/sites/daviddawkins/2021/10/01/money-man-for-venezuelaaccused-of-looting-billionsnears-extradition-to-the-us/?sh=63689e536a5f> 
“I cover the work and wealth of Europe’s richest.” Because /Forbes/ 
services the niche of corporate media that is read by elites and those 
who attend them, their reports are – as in this case – more factual than 
some of the more popularly oriented media outlets 
<https://fair.org/home/saab-case-shows-western-medias-casual-acceptance-of-us-atrocities/>.

For example, /Forbes/ discloses that Saab is believed to have “the means 
and know-how to help discreetly keep an entire economy moving under the 
eyes of a watching world.” The “world” that is “watching” is a reference 
to the US surveillance state. Because Saab has been instrumental in 
circumventing the illegal US blockade of Venezuela is exactly why the US 
has persecuted the diplomat and why Washington seeks to bring him to the US.

Indeed, Saab is understood to be, according to /Forbes, /“a key cog in 
Venezuela’s national money machine,” who “worked as a key fixer on the 
country’s housing and food programs, juggling contacts, companies and 
bank accounts around the world.”

Giving credit where it is due, /Forbes/ notes: “Much to the annoyance of 
the Trump and Biden administrations, Saab, a creative and capable 
businessman, found a way to navigate Venezuelan trade in sectors like 
food, oil and gold between the cracks of US oversight.”

The US case against Saab is political, not legal. Femi Falana, Saab’s 
lead attorney at the regional Economic Community of West African States 
(ECOWAS) court in Nigeria, maintains “the case against Alex Saab is 
indeed rooted in political expediency.” The real reason for the US 
extradition effort, as /Forbes /reveals, is that Saab is a “serious 
information asset for the US in understanding just how the country 
[Venezuela] does business.”

Underlining the importance of Saab to the US, the Navy cruiser San 
Jacinto was clandestinely deployed for a period off the coast of Cabo 
Verde, where Saab was imprisoned. The /New York Times /described the 
dispatch of the warship as a “secret mission 
<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/22/us/politics/navy-cape-verde-venezuela.html> 
aimed at helping deal a major blow to President Nicolás Maduro of 
Venezuela.”

*International effort to free Alex Saab*

/Forbes/ correctly reports: “But for many in Venezuela, this [Saab’s 
activities] is not criminal—Saab is a hero, and his efforts overseas are 
the actions of a man trying to feed and house the hungry and homeless.” 
The Venezuelan government recently appointed Saab as an official 
delegate 
<https://orinocotribune.com/ambassador-alex-saab-to-join-mexico-talks-as-part-of-venezuelan-government-delegation/> 
to the talks in Mexico between them and the opposition United Platform 
group.

Internationally, Cabo Verde has received diplomatic letters protesting 
the Saab case from Iran, China, Russia, the United Nations, the African 
Union, and ECOWAS, based on the principles of immunity and inviolability 
of consular rights. Over 15,000 internationals have signed a petition 
<https://afgj.org/free-alex-saab> to the US and Cape Verdean political 
leadership to free Alex Saab at https://afgj.org/free-alex-saab 
<https://afgj.org/free-alex-saab>.

/Forbes /says Saab’s extradition is imminent. Saab’s lawyer Femi Falana 
says <https://www.workers.org/2021/09/59033/>, “the legal process is far 
from over, and His Excellency Alex Saab will not be going to the United 
States any time soon.” Regardless, Alex Saab says:

    “For those who dream that my speech or integrity will change if I am
    extradited, let me spoil that illusion. My integrity does not change
    with the [political] climate or the type of torture. Venezuela is
    sovereign.”

*/Roger Harris /*/is on the board of the Task Force on the Americas 
<http://taskforceamericas.org/>, a 32-year-old anti-imperialist human 
rights organization./

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