Venezuela Scrubs Talks With Opposition After Envoy's Extradition

Venezuela said it would suspend negotiations with the opposition that were set to resume this weekend after Cape Verde extradited Colombian businessman Alex Saab, a Venezuelan envoy, to the US on money laundering charges, Mayela Armas and Deisy Buitrago reported for Reuters.

Photo Insert: Socialist party legislator Jorge Rodriguez, head of the negotiating team

The announcement was made by Socialist party legislator Jorge Rodriguez, who heads the government's negotiating team. Rodriguez said the Venezuelan government would not attend the talks set to begin on Sunday.

Rodriguez, reading from a statement, called the decision to suspend negotiations "an expression of our deepest protest against the brutal aggression against the person and the investiture of our delegate Alex Saab Moran."

Opposition leader Juan Guaido condemned the decision.

The Venezuelan government in September named Saab - who was arrested in June 2020 when his plane stopped in Cape Verde to refuel - as a member of its negotiating team in talks with the opposition in Mexico, where the two sides are looking to solve their political crisis.

Venezuela, in a Twitter post by the Ministry of Communications, denounced the extradition as a "kidnapping." Hours after Saab's extradition, Venezuela revoked the house arrest of six former executives of refiner Citgo, a US subsidiary of state oil company PDVSA, two sources with knowledge of the situation and a family member told Reuters.

The US Justice Department charged Saab in 2019 in connection with a bribery scheme to take advantage of Venezuela's state-controlled exchange rate.

The US also sanctioned him for allegedly orchestrating a corruption network that allowed Saab and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to profit from a state-run food subsidy program. Saab's lawyers have called the US charges "politically motivated."

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