Maduro's ally, “clean”

MIAMI (EFE).— The US Justice Department definitively dismissed all the charges against the Colombian businessman Alex Saab, an ally of the government of the president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, and who was released in December 2023.

According to a motion dated Thursday and entered in court yesterday, federal judge Robert Scola granted the dismissal of all charges against Saab after the presidential pardon that the president of the United States signed in his favor on December 15. United, Joe Biden.

Saab, who was accused, among other charges, of money laundering, was freed that month in a prisoner exchange with Venezuela, which in turn freed 10 Americans and about twenty Venezuelans considered “political prisoners.”

The businessman was arrested on June 12, 2020 in Cape Verde following a US request through Interpol for alleged money laundering, after which Caracas noted that Saab was appointed special envoy in 2018 to carry out official missions in Iran.

He was later extradited to the United States, accused of money laundering conspiracy. He was also wanted by Colombian authorities for criminal conspiracy, illicit enrichment, fictitious exports and imports, and aggravated fraud. On the same day of his release, and after his arrival in Caracas, the businessman was received with hugs by Maduro.