The Persecution of Alex Saab: an International Performance

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Feb 03, 2024

In the vortex of deceit and iniquity that constitute the core of the American justice system, the curious case of Colombian Alex Saab, an official diplomat of Venezuela, stands out in its convoluted absurdity. Here's a closer look at the saga that unfolds against the backdrop of geopolitical tensions.

Venezuela is, as the story goes, the shining example of the deficiency of socialism, and Maduro is real-life Dr. Evil. The people living there that are suffering - this part is true - from excessive poverty. The state of the Venezuelan economy is said to be the fault its own government as opposed to the internationally illegal and illegitimate sanctions imposed upon it by the US. Never mind the fact that sanction warfare is, in reality, a form of terrorism against civilians that forces them to find refuge in the very country that screwed them over in the first place. ~~Isn’t there a very important border crisis to focus on instead of worrying about Americas criminal foreign policy?!~~

Enter stage-left Venezuelan diplomat Alex Saab who, on a legal diplomatic envoy- ~~his job~~ - gets arrested on his way to Iran. Officially he was accused of laundering $350 million to fund alleged corruption in Venezuela. Now, any American able to withstand the mainstream news media would likely declare the whole deal to be a bad news bear because, of course, Iran and Venezuela are EVIL. Saab’s flight lands to refuel in Cape Verde and BAM! - he gets hit with the democratic baton of freedom and ends up in federal detention in Miami. ~~Thankfully, we can rest assured the Jews will give him a fair and honest trial before crucifying him.~~

Saab’s diplomatic immunity is undeniable, as both the sending State and receiving State consented to the mission he was on, and international law also grants traveling immunity for Special Envoy; the fact that the court would be petty enough to waste resources contesting this is a slap in the face to the citizens of every United Nations member-state. Furthermore, Saab was extradited to Miami despite the fact that Cape Verde doesn’t even have an extradition treaty with the US. The US sent a military special forces unit to ‘collect’ Saab the day before local elections were held, and a federal judge in Miami granted the prosecutions request to keep the evidence and documents presented in defense of Colombian businessman Alex Saab sealed and inaccessible to the public.

Saab’s initial charges accused him of money laundering and were later reduced to a single charge. In essence, the ‘money laundering’ he was accused of could be more appropriately referred to as a diplomatic attempt to bypass the illegal US sanctions that continue to cripple the Venezuelan economy. These charges were blatantly fraudulent from the start, but after a three-year investigation by the the Public Ministry of the city of Geneva, Switzerland found the allegations to be completely unfounded. All of them. The US legal system was nevertheless undeterred, Saab’s attorneys witnessed visible bodily injuries and signs of maltreatment. The UN human rights commission (UNHRC) even attempted to intervene on Saab’s behalf, although, unsurprisingly and, quite probably by design, to no avail. As one might expect, Saab has also received considerable defense on his behalf from African organizations such as ECOWAS and the African Bar Association.

Other notable support for Saab comes from Puerto Rican former political prisoner Oscar Lopez Rivera,1 who sums up the case perfectly explaining that, “Alex Saab's only "crime" is following the orders of his president on behalf of the people of Venezuela and finding ways to legally engage in trade to alleviate the hardship caused by the United States.”

Alex Saab is not the only Venezuelan the US government has gone after. The Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) published Executive Order 13850 in June of '2020 that vaguely attempts to outline one of the many schemes Saab was allegedly involved in. The court proceedings included multiple errors from the judge in regards to what exactly Saab was accused of; for example, the judge starts out by mentioning a food scandal when on paper, he’s accused of a scandal involving construction businesses. Now, the state departments website accuses Saab of being somehow involved with Hezbollah, taking advantage of the Lebanese heritage of his father. The US government has a long history of accusing its enemies of being involved with terrorist groups in order to justify its aggression. Unsurprisingly, the US government has not provided any evidence to support it’s claims against Saab.

Adding to the irony, Saab was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize due to the humanitarian nature of his Special Envoy’s true mission, which aimed at providing food and aid toward the Venezuelan people at the risk of his own security and freedom. For his efforts, he was rewarded by being kidnapped and tortured in a US prison. Why are the court proceedings sealed? Why is the judge manipulating the Brady rule to exclude critical evidence from the Department of State, the Office of International Affairs, the National Security Division, the Department of Treasury, the Department of Defense, and the US Coast Guard? Clearly the international justice system is a spectacle, and an unconvincing one at that. International law is only real in the suffering and death of its corporeal victims; the victims of the fourth reich.