MIAMI \u2014 A notorious businessman close to Venezuela\u2019s leader who is charged in a massive corruption case in Miami was released from federal custody Wednesday morning in a swap for a U.S. fugitive from justice and 10 Americans detained in Venezuela, the Biden administration confirmed.<\/p>\n
The Biden administration has secured the freedom of the Americans, six of whom are considered by the U.S. to have been \u201cwrongfully detained,\u201d in exchange for the release of Alex Saab, one of Venezuelan leader Nicol\u00e1s Maduro\u2019s most trusted confidantes, after months of quiet negotiations between the two countries, sources said.<\/p>\n
As part of the deal, Maduro also agreed to the release of 20 Venezuelan prisoners as well as Roberto Abdul, who was charged with treason after organizing a recent primary election that opposition leader Maria Corina Machado<\/a> won to be a presidential candidate in 2024. The Maduro government has since banned Machado from running next year.<\/p>\n Maduro also turned over to the U.S. authorities Malaysian national Leonard Glenn Francis, known as \u201cFat Leonard,\u201d<\/a> who is charged with bribing U.S. Navy officers and has been a fugitive from U.S. justice after fleeing to the South American nation.<\/p>\n In a statement, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the U.S. welcomes the release of the 20 Venezuelan political prisoners and \u201cthe reinstatement of all Venezuelan political candidates.\u201d<\/p>\n In a call with reporters earlier in the day, Biden administration officials declined to say whether Maduro had agreed to let Machado appear on the ballot in 2024 as part of the secretive negotiations.<\/p>\n \u201cRight now what we\u2019re thinking about is that Maria Corina Machado was able to present her appeal to the Supreme Tribunal for consideration, and our expectation is that that decision will be done promptly,\u201d a senior administration official said.<\/p>\n Maduro\u2019s regime did not mention Machado in its own statement, which confirmed the prisoner exchange and announced that Saab would soon be on Venezuelan soil.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela joyfully celebrates the release and return to his homeland of our diplomat Alex Saab, who until today was unjustly kidnapped in a U.S. prison,\u201d the regime said in a press release.<\/p>\n Saab, the regime said, would be welcomed back \u201cwith pride after having suffered three-and-a-half years of illegal detention under cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, violating his human rights and the Vienna Convention that grants him diplomatic immunity.\u201d<\/p>\n Biden administration officials say the prison swap was \u201cthe result of many, many months of negotiations,\u201d regular consultations with Biden and \u201can extensive amount of work involving our senior leadership.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThese individuals have lost far too much precious time with their loved ones, and their families have suffered every day in their absence,\u201d Biden said late Wednesday after the former hostages were safely in U.S. custody. \u201cI am grateful that their ordeal is finally over, and that these families are being made whole once more.\u201d<\/p>\n The developments, he said, were \u201ca positive and important step forward,\u201d as he reminded Americans that they should not travel to Venezuela. Earlier in the day, while onboard Air Force One, Biden told reporters: \u201cIt looks like Maduro, so far, is keeping his commitment on a free election. But it ain\u2019t done yet. We\u2019ve got a long way to go. But it\u2019s good so far.\u201d<\/p>\n The U.S. used international connections to achieve the prisoner swap, leveraging its relationship with other countries, notably Qatar, which facilitated conversations between Maduro and the U.S. over clearing a path toward 2024 presidential elections, an official said.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is part of our president, President Biden\u2019s strong prioritization of the safe return of all Americans held hostage and wrongfully detained abroad,\u201d another senior official said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe consequences of this difficult decision will be to reunite parents with their children and grandchildren,\u201d the official added, \u201cand to ensure that one of the most notorious fugitives from justice, Fat Leonard, is returned and held to account for his fraud.\u201d<\/p>\n As the exchange unfolded Wednesday, officials stressed that it remained \u201cfragile\u201d and remained cautious, knowing that it could fall apart at any moment.<\/p>\n The exchange took nearly fell through at multiple turns, McClatchy and the Miami Herald have learned. The United States sought the release of all American citizens being held in Venezuelan jails \u2014 including those designated wrongfully detained by the State Department, and those who are not \u2014 as well as the extradition \u201cFat Leonard.\u201d<\/p>\n Saab\u2019s knowledge of the inner workings of the Maduro regime was considered a potential goldmine of information by U.S. officials and law enforcement, which led to criticism Wednesday of the decision to release him from U.S. custody.<\/p>\n \u201cPresident Biden has granted another concession to Maduro with the release of Saab,\u201d Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio said. \u201cAs we have witnessed throughout this administration, this will only encourage the tyrants of the world to continue holding Americans hostage.<\/p>\n \u201cSaab is the architect of Maduro\u2019s corruption and money laundering operation, a scheme that has deprived the people of Venezuela of resources,\u201d he added. \u201cUnfortunately, this exchange only incentivizes dictators to kidnap more Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n Carrie Filipetti, a former deputy assistant secretary of state for Cuba and Venezuela in the Trump administration, also slammed the Biden policy directio on Venezuela, saying \u201cthere is nothing publicly\u201d that suggests Maduro will hold free and fair elections next year. She cited a European Union Electoral Observation Mission that listed 23 steps the regime needs to take \u2014 some of which would take 18 to 24 months to implement \u2014 for the elections to be fair.<\/p>\n \u201cWe haven\u2019t seen any progress on that, we\u2019ve seen worsening conditions for civil society, almost a criminalization of civil society in the country, an increased in censorship. There\u2019s almost 300 Venezuelans that are political prisoners,\u201d she said. \u201cNone of the conditions that would be requires for an election to be free and fair are currently in Venezuela and there currently doesn\u2019t seem to be a trend that suggests they are getting closer to that.<\/p>\n Filipetti noted that in exchange for what she said is very little, the U.S. has given up two of the key pieces of leverage against the regime, which Maduro had been pursuing: the return of Saab and the lifting of sanctions on oil, some of which the administration previously agreed to.<\/p>\n Saab, a Colombian businessman, was claiming diplomatic immunity as a defense in a $350 million money-laundering case that had yet to go to trial in Miami. He was accused of paying bribes to Venezuelan officials for government contracts. For nearly a year, he had worked as a confidential informant for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and turned over $12 million of his profits to the DEA before he failed to surrender in 2019, federal court records show.<\/p>\n His release marks a breakthrough for Maduro, who sought the return of his right-hand man and fixer ever since he was detained by Cape Verde authorities in 2020 on an Interpol red notice. After his arrest, Saab claimed to be a special envoy traveling for Maduro to Iran on a gold-for-gasoline trade mission.<\/p>\n At the time, U.S. officials were so concerned with the lengths Maduro would go to release Saab that the Trump administration sent U.S. Navy ships to patrol off of Cape Verde\u2019s coasts. Saab was extradited to the United States in October 2021 on money-laundering charges stemming from his housing contracts with the Venezuelan government and transfer of millions to the United States and other countries. Saab, who had faced up to 20 years in prison, remained in U.S. detention pending trial until his release on Wednesday.<\/p>\n Before the deal was struck, Biden administration officials had been adamant they were powerless to negotiate over Saab\u2019s fate, noting he was the subject of an ongoing Justice Department case.<\/p>\n Saab was among dozens of Venezuelan officials, businessmen and contractors who have been accused in Miami federal court of collectively stealing billions of dollars from their government in corruption schemes allegedly involving Maduro, the late president Hugo Chavez and other high-ranking officials with Venezuela\u2019s national oil company, PDVSA.<\/p>\n But Maduro\u2019s willingness to negotiate a larger deal that would secure the release of all Americans held in the country enticed President Joe Biden, who was intimately involved in the final arrangement, two officials said.<\/p>\n On Wednesday, a senior administration official insisted that the White House did not interfere with the Department of Justice and the release of Saab was done under Biden\u2019s authority to grant clemency.<\/p>\n \u201cThe president made what was a difficult choice, but the right choice to grant clemency,\u201d an official said.<\/p>\n Saab is the only prisoner released by the U.S. as part of the swap, and the deal does not involve clearing Maduro of criminal charges he currently faces in the U.S., or the lifting sanctions against Venezuela\u2019s state-owned oil and gas company, U.S. officials insisted.<\/p>\n \u201cIn order to make this exchange, the president had to to make the extremely difficult decision to offer something that the Venezuelan counterpart actively sought,\u201d the official said. \u201cAnd he made the decision to grant clemency to Alex Saab with a pending trial for money laundering and allow his return to Venezuela in what was essentially an exchange for 10 Americans and a fugitive from justice for one person returned to Venezuela.\u201d<\/p>\n The deal comes three weeks after Maduro missed a Nov. 30 deadline set by the White House to begin releasing all U.S. citizens held in Venezuelan custody, in exchange for limited sanctions relief on Venezuela\u2019s oil sector rolled out weeks prior. Despite vowing to snap sanctions back in place if Maduro failed to comply, no sanctions were reimposed as talks quietly continued over the swap.<\/p>\n In addition to relying on Qatar, the U.S. also appeared to have leaned on St. Vincent and the Grenadines, taking advantage of recent talks hosted in the eastern Caribbean country. The talks were led by the Caribbean Community and Brazil and were involved Maduro\u2019s threats to invade an oil-rich territory of neighboring Guyana.<\/a> Following a day of negotiations over the border dispute, Maduro agreed to back off his threats.<\/p>\n \u201cVenezuela is not making progress on electoral conditions. They\u2019ve arrested more Americans, which of course is part of their game so that they can get the United States to make deals like what we\u2019re seeing today. But they\u2019re also threatening to invade a sovereign nation and this is the moment when the U.S. government decides to relieve pressure on that country,\u201d said Filipetti, who heads the Vandenberg Coalition, a conservative foreign policy-focused nonprofit. \u201cIf anything that just encourages the kind of behavior that we\u2019re seeing from the Maduro regime, and that\u2019s why I think it\u2019s a really flawed policy direction that we\u2019re headed in.\u201d<\/p>\n Administration official say Venezuela is now back in line with the commitments Maduro made in Barbados over the prisoners\u2019 release and the 2024 presidential elections, and the prisoner swap opens the \u201cdoor for us to continue to engage in dialogue so that when Venezuela holds elections next year, they are competitive and inclusive, and that will allow Venezuelans to really determine the future of the country.\u201d<\/p>\n Administration officials on Wednesday declined to name the Americans who were being held pending notification of their families and their release into U.S. custody.<\/p>\n Geoff Ramsay, an expert on Venezuela at the Atlantic Council in Washington, says he knows of at least nine Americans currently being held. They are: former Green Berets Luke Denman and Airan Berry, as well as Jerrel Kenemore, Eyvin Hernandez, Savoi Wright, Abraham Coakley III, Hamid Ortiz Dahud, Jason George Saad and Joseph Ryan.<\/p>\n Neither Denman nor Berry, the former Green Berets, are designated as wrongful detainees. The two pleaded guilty in Venezuelan court to taking part in a scheme to overthrow Maduro during the Trump administration known as Operation Gideon, a botched plot that landed them both 20-year prison sentences.<\/p>\n But Eyvin Hernandez, a deputy public defender from Los Angeles, has been wrongfully detained in Venezuela since being abducted<\/a> by armed men at the country\u2019s border with Colombia while on vacation in March, U.S. officials and friends of the Hernandez family told McClatchy and the Miami Herald.<\/p>\n Joseph Ryan Cristella, a Florida resident, was similarly traveling through Colombia late last year before he was apprehended<\/a> in the country\u2019s border region and transferred to a prison of Venezuela\u2019s military counterterrorism unit.<\/p>\n __________<\/p>\n (Miami Herald reporters Nora G\u00e1mez Torres and Antonio Maria Delgado contributed to this report.)<\/p>\n __________<\/p>\n \u00a92023 Miami Herald. Visit miamiherald.com<\/a>. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.<\/a> <\/p>\n KeyWords:: 9b9e58fc-c9b7-4e6b-9a93-0eaa0494862e MIAMI \u2014 A notorious businessman close to Venezuela\u2019s leader who is charged in a massive corruption case in Miami was released from federal custody Wednesday morning in a swap for a U.S. fugitive from justice and 10 Americans detained in Venezuela, the Biden administration confirmed. The Biden administration has secured the freedom of the Americans, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-70500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=70500"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70500\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":70501,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70500\/revisions\/70501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=70500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=70500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=70500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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