Venezuelan President Sent Letter to Khamenei Accrediting US Fugitive

A Colombian businessman was carrying a letter from Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro accrediting him to Iran’s supreme leader when he was arrested on a US warrant last year, according to a new court filing in a politically charged corruption case ratcheting up tensions with the South American nation.
Attorneys
for Alex Saab made the filing in Miami federal court on Thursday just hours
after prosecutors in the African nation of Cape Verde said they granted the
49-year-old Colombian house arrest as he fights extradition to the US to face
money laundering charges, The Associated Press reported.
US
officials believe Saab holds numerous secrets about how Maduro, his family and
top aides allegedly siphoned off millions of dollars in government contracts
amid widespread hunger in the oil-rich nation.
He
was detained last June when his jet made a refueling stop on a flight to
Tehran, where he was allegedly sent to negotiate deals to exchange Venezuelan
gold for Iranian gasoline.
Lawyers
filed a motion seeking to dismiss the US charges, arguing Saab is immune from
prosecution as a result of the many diplomatic posts he has held for Maduro’s
government since 2018.
As
evidence, they presented letters signed by Maduro’s foreign minister
purportedly accrediting Saab as a special envoy for humanitarian aid as well as
a resolution — signed last month — naming him Venezuela’s alternate permanent
representative to the African Union in Ethiopia.
There
is also a letter, addressed to Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in which Maduro
asks the Iranian supreme leader to help Saab obtain an “urgent” shipment of 5
million barrels of gasoline following the arrival of several previous shipments
from Iran.
Another apparent diplomatic note, from the Iranian Embassy in Caracas, refers to Saab’s upcoming “official” visit and a request for the delivery of Iranian-made medicines.