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WASHINGTON, Oct. 1 (AP) Venezuela released seven Americans imprisoned in the South American country on Saturday in exchange for the release of two nephews of President Nicolas Maduro’s wife on drug-smuggling charges Imprisoned in the United States for many years. officials said.
The exchange of Americans, including five oil executives imprisoned for nearly five years, is the largest ever deal of detained citizens in a Biden administration.
“We are relieved and relieved to welcome seven Americans wrongfully detained for too long in Venezuela today to their families,” said Joshua Geltzer, deputy advisor to the Department of Homeland Security.
It amounts to a rare gesture of goodwill from Maduro, as the socialist leader looks to rebuild ties with the United States after defeating most of his domestic rivals. The deal came after months of secret diplomacy by top Washington hostage negotiators and other U.S. officials — secret talks with a major oil producer turned into secrecy after sanctions on Russia weighed on global energy prices more urgent.
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Those freed included five employees of Houston-based Citgo — Tomeu Vadell, Jose Luis Zambrano, Alirio Zambrano, Jorge Toledo and Jose Pereira — who were lured to Venezuela before Thanksgiving 2017 for a meeting at the company’s parent company’s headquarters s meeting. – Runs oil giant PDVSA. Once there, they were dragged away by masked security officers who broke into a conference room in Caracas.
Also freed are Matthew Heath, a former U.S. Marine Corps Corporal from Tennessee who was arrested at a Venezuelan roadblock in 2020 on what the State Department called “plausible” weapons charges, and Florida State man Osman Khan was arrested in January.
US frees ‘First Combatant’ Celia Flores’ Frankie Flores and nephew of his cousin Evran Campo, as Maduro says his wife . The men were arrested in a 2015 raid by the Haitian Drug Enforcement Agency and were immediately taken to New York for trial. The following year, they were convicted in a high-profile case that brought a harsh scrutiny of the highest-level drug trafficking charges against the Maduro government in the United States.
Both received clemency from President Joe Biden before their release.
The Biden administration has been under pressure to do more to hold the roughly 60 Americans it believes are being held hostage abroad or wrongly detained by hostile foreign governments. While much of the focus has been on Russia, the U.S. has so far unsuccessfully tried to secure the release of WNBA star Britney Greenner and another American, Paul Whelan, but Venezuela has held the biggest stake. The American team is suspected of being used as a bargaining chip.
At least four other Americans remain detained in Venezuela, including two former Green Berets who were involved in a hasty 2019 attempt to topple Maduro, and two others, like Khan, for allegedly entering illegally from neighboring Colombia. men detained in the country.
The Biden administration has not released another prisoner Maduro has long sought: Alex Saab, an insider businessman in Venezuela who sees diplomats and U.S. prosecutors as promoters of a corrupt regime. Sabo, who opposed extradition from Cape Verde, was arrested last year during a stopover en route to Iran and is now awaiting trial in Miami federal court on charges of misappropriating millions of state contracts.
The oil executives were convicted of embezzlement last year in a trial marred by delays and irregularities. They were sentenced to eight to 13 years in prison for a never-executed proposal to refinance billions in oil company bonds. Maduro accused them of “treason” at the time, and Venezuela’s Supreme Court upheld their long sentences earlier this year. All have pleaded not guilty, and the State Department believes they — along with the two other Americans released Saturday — were wrongfully detained. (Associated Press)
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from the Syndicated News feed, the body of the content may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)
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