The alleged financier of the questioned president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, says he fears being extradited to the United States

(CNN) – Businessman Alex Saab claims that he was tortured by Cape Verdean authorities and that even worse punishments await him if he is extradited to the United States.

Saab, a Colombian businessman who is also said to be a “financier” and “front man” of the questioned president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, told CNN in an exclusive interview from his place of detention in Cape Verde that he has no doubts about what will happen to him if he is sent to the United States.

“If I am extradited to the United States, all independent experts are categorical: I will be exposed to forced interrogation techniques, torture, mistreatment, an unfair trial, inhumane detention conditions and cruel punishments,” he said in a handwritten letter. , responding to questions sent by CNN, through its lawyers in Cape Verde.

“For the rest, I have faith in God and I know that he will give me the strength to win,” he also stated, in what is his first interview since he was arrested a year ago.

Saab was arrested on June 12, 2020 when he was flying from Venezuela to Iran. His plane stopped on the Cape Verdean island of Sal to refuel, and the authorities there stopped him on the spot. The US Department of Justice requests his extradition to US soil and, according to the Cape Verde prosecution, after a long legal battle, the country’s Constitutional Court will make a final decision in the coming weeks.

USA holds that Saab is behind a vast network of corruption involving government-subsidized food boxes that has allowed Maduro and his allies to steal hundreds of millions of dollars from the Venezuelan people, while using food as a form of social control .

The US Department of the Treasury has sanctioned it and is wanted by the Department of Justice of the Southern District of Florida, on charges of money laundering.

Writing from an apartment on the touristic Cape Verdean island of Sal, where he has been under house arrest since January this year, Saab describes his arrest as a “kidnapping” and as an “exceptionally serious diplomatic conflict.” Not surprisingly, he also denies the accusations from the United States.

“We all know that sanctioning is a political action,” writes Saab, accusing the United States of trying to meddle in the internal affairs of Venezuela. “The fact that they have chosen to sanction me confirms that they are telling the world that they have no evidence to support any accusation.”

“That is why they cannot brand me a criminal, but they continue to seek to destroy my reputation,” he concludes.

The US State Department did not respond to CNN’s requests for comment.

America goes to court

The United States disagrees and wants to prove it in court. His accusation is one of many that target businessmen and officials who are part of or connected to the Venezuelan government, including Maduro himself, with charges ranging from money laundering and corruption to narco-terrorism.

Maduro and his closest allies in Venezuela have downplayed the accusations, but many outside of Venezuela have not had that luxury. In late 2020, the US Department of Justice announced that 33 individuals named for its ongoing investigation into corruption in Venezuela had pleaded guilty. The court documents show that some cooperate with the United States authorities.

Saab himself has been charged with one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering and seven counts of money laundering. The Justice Department indictment lists various bank transfers made by Saab and its associates, outside of Venezuela and to bank accounts controlled by them. The Justice Department claims that these transfers were part of a bribery and money laundering scheme related to government contracts for the construction of low-cost housing that allegedly involved the theft of some US $ 350 million from Venezuela.

Saab rejects this too.

“The money laundering allegations are unfounded, purely political, and artificially constructed by the authorities to serve political interests,” he says. “They are based on testimony provided by discredited witnesses who have been rewarded with US citizenship for their cooperation.”

“The truth is that US law enforcement has done everything possible to try to find a connection between me and the United States, a country I have not visited in 30 years,” he adds.

Saab also claims that authorities in other countries have targeted him in the past and were also unable to find evidence to convict him.

“The Swiss authorities, known for their meticulousness and thoroughness, spent three years investigating all the money flows into and out of specific accounts associated with me,” he explains. “The investigation concluded after they were unable to find evidence to support the allegations of money laundering and corruption, the same ones on which the US accusation is based.”

Saab believes that in targeting him, Washington’s ultimate target is Maduro.

“They have asked me: ‘Alex, why don’t you lie and’ give away ‘President Maduro? Why don’t you give the Americans what they want? You’d be home in a few days, ‘”he says. “Let me be very clear, I have nothing bad to say about President Maduro, I only feel gratitude towards him.”

Saab argues that it would not be of interest to the Americans, denying that he is Maduro’s “financier”, despite confirming that he works closely with the Venezuelan government, when asked if he is the right-hand man of the embattled president.

“If this means that I am loyal, committed and dedicated to defending the interests of the Venezuelan people and that, in that sense, I act in conjunction with President Maduro, then yes, as well as with his cabinet ministers,” he explains. “But I am not anyone’s’ financier, nor does President Maduro, an honest man of humble origins, need a financier.”

Venezuela intervenes

Venezuela has called for the businessman’s release since his arrest. Although Maduro himself has not addressed the issue publicly, as he usually does when Venezuela makes international news, the country’s government has said that his trip to Iran was part of a special humanitarian mission, as a “special envoy from Venezuela.” It also says it issued Saab a diplomatic passport which gives him diplomatic immunity, and calls for his immediate release.

“My arrest and detention in Cape Verde are completely arbitrary, illegal and illegitimate, there is no doubt about it,” he says, criticizing the African country for bowing to US interests. “Cape Verde boasts the independence of its judicial system and boasts of being a bastion of democratic values ​​in Africa, but facts speak louder than words.”

Saab accuses the government of Cape Verde of trampling the law, and while waiting for the country’s Constitutional Court to rule definitively on whether he should be extradited to the United States, the Colombian businessman asks the judges to “punish the government’s arbitrary excesses and abuses [de Cabo Verde]».

«I have been tortured physically and psychologically, I have been denied the specialized medical attention that I need. They kept me in a cell with barely an hour of light a day, “he says. Saab battled stomach cancer in 2013 and needs constant monitoring, says its legal team.

Arrested in June last year, he was transferred to house arrest in January. Still, he notes, their conditions have not improved.

“I am guarded 24 hours a day by armed guards,” he says, criticizing not only the type of surveillance he is subjected to, but also the lack of leniency and flexibility of the local authorities. “It took my parents to die of covid so that the Cape Verdean authorities had a drop of compassion and allowed my sister to come visit me so that we could mourn her death together.”

CNN asked Cape Verde’s prosecutors to comment on Saab’s allegations against them, but they declined to comment. At the beginning of the month, when asked about the case, Cape Verde’s attorney general, Luís José Landim, told reporters that his country’s authorities have always complied with the law.

A few weeks away from a sentence that could send him to the United States, Saab says he is praying for his “dignity and freedom” back.

“I think all the men and women in my place would have the same wishes, the same hopes,” he says. “Naturally, I still hope that justice will be served in this case.”

Many in Venezuela and the United States also hope that justice will be served, but in their version of justice, they would hold Saab to account for the crimes they believe he has committed.