Exclusive statements by Alex Saab: "I have been tortured to testify against Nicolás Maduro and sign my voluntary extradition to the US"

• Latin America: green light for the extradition of Alex Saab to the United States

The Colombian businessman Álex Saab, accused by the US of being the

, denounces from the Cape Verde prison where it is found that "he has suffered torture to sign his voluntary extradition", an extreme that, he assures, does not go to accept under any circumstances.

In a letter sent from his cell, to which EL MUNDO.es has had exclusive access, he denounces that "The United States has four native employees of Cape Verde, who constantly enter his cell at night wearing hoods and grind him hits".

"The purpose of these criminals," says Saab in her letter, "is to sign the voluntary extradition to the United States and make false statements against President Maduro and her family."

However, she advances that "not even with blood" she is willing to "sign those lies and slander against a president who is fighting to save her people amid an inhuman blockade."

The Government of Donald Trump accuses Saab of laundering 350 million dollars

from acts of corruption that it attributes to the Venezuelan president through the American financial system.

This businessman was arrested on June 12 when his plane stopped to refuel at the Amilcar Cabral international airport on the island of Sal, the most important in Cape Verde.

The arrest came at the request of the US and was channeled through an Interpol arrest warrant for money laundering.

"I have been a diplomat since April 2018 as a special envoy of Venezuela for Russia and Iran with diplomatic inviolability and immunity and I demand my immediate release," he adds.

Saab argues that he was "arbitrarily detained in Cape Verde and taken off the private plane in which he was traveling."

"I was tortured for two days in order to get him to sign statements and I refused," he says.

According to who is currently considered by the US as one of its main objectives, "I was going to Iran on an official visit in search of food, medicine and gasoline to alleviate a crisis worsened by the Empire."

"The gasoline arrived in Venezuela, as all the media announced, arousing even more hatred in the United States," emphasizes the Colombian businessman of Lebanese origin.

Business network

It should be remembered that the figure of Saab appeared for the first time in public in 2017, when the former Venezuelan prosecutor Luisa Ortega accused him of being one of Maduro's front men.

He then linked him to a business network that revolves around Group Grand Limited and

for the government Local Supply and Production Committees (CLAP).

According to the US, Saab and three of Maduro's stepchildren appropriated "hundreds of millions of dollars" destined for the most needy classes in the country.

The Trump administration maintains that it has jurisdiction in the case since, according to it, between 2011 and 2015, Saab and his right hand, Álvaro Enrique Pulido, made millionaire transfers from Venezuelan bank accounts to the United States.

Specifically, and according to the accusation of the US authorities, which this newspaper has accessed, they carried out at least

.

Alex Saab's International Red Capture Notice, issued by Interpol.EM

The international defense of Saab, in which the law firm of Baltasar Garzón is located, maintains that the "comprehensive falsehood" of the accusations of the US, which it accuses of violating the "principle of criminal loyalty" in this matter.

It also denies that Saab has collaborated with the American authorities by providing any type of information and advances that it has not provided or will provide "any type of cooperation or collaboration" to the US.

The lawyers defend that Saab was a Venezuelan citizen and "agent" of the Government who was "in transit" in Cape Verde to return to the country.

Regarding the millionaire transfers, they maintain that they correspond to "the importation of containers with construction materials" for the

and they call on the American authorities to verify that the materials were not only imported effectively but also they are employed in homes that are being built right now.

"These are the only transfers made by Saab to the US and they do not have any criminal objective, as in fact the extradition order has not been able to demonstrate, which does not provide any evidence."

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• U.S

• Iran

• Nicolas Maduro

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• Baltasar Garzón

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