NewsThe judge denies release on bail to the front...

The judge denies release on bail to the front man of Nicolás Maduro, Alex Saab, and summons him again in November

The front man of the Venezuelan narco-dictator Nicolás Maduro, Alex Saab , has already appeared before the judge in the United States after being extradited by Cape Verde last weekend. He did it this Monday in his first hearing – online and from the prison he is in – in the first step of his trial for money laundering and for participating in a bribery scheme. The judge has denied freedom under Saab bail for “risk of flight”.

The front man Saab appeared in a telematic hearing on Monday afternoon before Federal Judge John J. O’Sullivan of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida. The judge has served him on eight charges for laundering hundreds of millions of dollars from corrupt businesses . One count is for conspiring to launder money, and another seven for the commission of that crime.

Saab has appeared handcuffed, with long hair, a blue mask and with the orange jumpsuit commonly used for inmates of the American judicial system to determine a possible bail while the trial is taking place, but the public defender who has been granted, Henry Bell, has requested a postponement to meet with his client in a “very complex” case, reports the US press.

Saab faces one charge for conspiring to launder corrupt money and seven others for the commission of that crime. The extension is also necessary as the Saab legal team awaits the decision of an appeal filed before the 11th Circuit of Appeals. of Atlanta that alleges that the Colombian businessman cannot be prosecuted because he enjoys diplomatic immunity, since he was appointed by Venezuela as a special envoy with a diplomatic passport.

The judge has granted Bell’s request and has set the next hearing for November 1. That is when Saab will have to plead guilty or not guilty in court . The prosecution, for its part, has rejected the granting of provisional liberty because it considers that there is a high risk of flight.

“Maduro only thinks about his interests”

For his part, the spokesman for the US State Department, Ned Price, has rejected that the extradition of Alex Saab from Cape Verde to the United States has nothing to do with the negotiations between the Government and the Venezuelan opposition and has therefore urged to Caracas to resume contacts.

According to the US official, “it is difficult for autocratic regimes to understand how we work (…). Law enforcement is independent of politics. The criminal charges against Alex Saab are very old and have no relation to the “political negotiations” between the government and the opposition.

The Maduro regime has made it very clear that it is once again putting its interests above those of the Venezuelan people . They put the case of an individual above the welfare of millions of Venezuelans, “he argued.

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