- Alex Saab released in US-Venezuela prisoner swap on Canouan
“Alex Saab is a victim of retaliation by the United States government for his exceptional international efforts to protect the social rights of all Venezuelans.”
The Venezuelan administration applauded the release of diplomat Alex Saab from an illegal kidnapping in the United States for more than three years, in violation of international law.
The Venezuelan Foreign Ministry celebrated the diplomat’s release and return to Venezuela in a statement. He had been held in a U.S. detention centre for more than 1,280 days after being wrongfully imprisoned.
“The people welcome him with 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,” the statement adds.
“Alex Saab is a victim of retaliation by the United States government for his exceptional international efforts to protect the social rights of all Venezuelans, in the face of the intensification of unilateral coercive measures,” the statement goes on to add.
Venezuela stated that his freedom “is a symbol of victory of the Bolivarian diplomacy of peace and of the thousands of demonstrations of solidarity expressed from all corners of the world by social movements, intellectuals, artists and other fighters for justice.”
Similarly, the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry praised “the courage and dignity of his wife, children, and family, who accompanied him at all times in his denunciation and hope for his release.”
According to the statement, “today the link of this injustice is broken, which obliges us to reaffirm once again the unanimous demand of all of Venezuela for a definitive, immediate and unconditional end to the criminal blockade imposed by the Government of the United States against all the Venezuelan people.”
