Cape Green today extradited state United to the Colombian businessman Alex Saab, alleged front man of the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, sources from the Cape Verdean government confirmed to Efe.
The sources indicated that Saab, who had been detained in Cape Green Since June 2020 and was claimed for alleged money laundering, he left the country today aboard a plane bound for the United States.
As the aforementioned sources revealed to Efe, the Constitutional Court of Cape Verde, which considered the extradition of the Colombian as constitutional on September 7, sent this Thursday, October 14, to the Attorney General’s Office the final judicial order for the extradition to be carried out. made effective.
Likewise, in a letter sent by the Ministry of Justice Cape Verdean and also dated Thursday to which Efe has had access, the Government communicated to the United States embassy in the African country the execution of the Saab delivery and requested information on the means of transport, the date and time at the that this was going to be transferred.
The extradition ends a long judicial journey that has lasted more than a year, since the businessman was arrested on June 12, 2020 when his plane stopped to refuel at the Amilcar Cabral International Airport on the island of Sal.
The arrest responded to a request from EU. sent through Interpol, but the defense has alleged that this alert was issued after the arrest and therefore filed an appeal against the alleged unconstitutionality of the arrest.
However, this and all the other legal attempts by Saab lawyers to stop his delivery have been unsuccessful before the Cape Verdean Justice.
Thus, with its verdict of September 7, the TC agreed with two lower instances, the Barlavento Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court, in addition to the Cape Verdean government itself, which had already authorized the handover of Saab.
The justice of the African country did not listen to the Court of Justice of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) -block of countries to which it belongs Cape Green– when it ruled last December that he should be granted unrestricted access to specialist doctors of his choice, nor to the UN Human Rights Committee when he made the same request in June.
After his arrest, Venezuela assured that the businessman is a Venezuelan citizen and an “agent” of the Government who was “in transit” in Cape Verde, for which his lawyers have maintained that “he had the right to personal inviolability as a special envoy of Venezuela”.
The 49-year-old businessman’s name appeared in the media when the former Venezuelan prosecutor Louise Ortega Diaz He accused him in 2017 of being one of the front men of the Venezuelan president.
Saab, born in the Colombian city of Barranquilla and of Lebanese origin, is related to several companies, including Group Grand Limited (GGL), accused of supplying food and supplies with surcharges to the Administration of Nicholas Mature.
The businessman and three stepchildren of Mature they profited from these operations with “hundreds of millions of dollars”, according to US authorities.
