Lawyers for Mr. Alex Saab, the Venezuelan diplomat who has been in detention in Cape Verde, has petitioned the office of the country’s Attorney General over misconduct from the Judicial police.
They are accusing the police of committing perjury, torture, and concealment of evidence against Mr. Saab.
The complaint was filed on June 21, 2021.
Mr. Saab’s defense team are accusing the Police of illegally concealing evidence that prove that Mr. Saab was carrying out activities as a diplomat at the time of his arrest in Cape Verde.
According to them, a suit case belonging to Alex Saab at the time of the arrest contained “letters in envelopes addressed to senior political officials of the Islamic Republic of Iran sent by senior political officials of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela along with other valuables”
The lawyers say the “suitcase and documents were only returned after the Complainant was transferred from the island of São Vicente to the Island of Sal and handed over to one of the complainant’s lawyers.
This is not the first time Mr. Saab’s defense team in Cape Verde have brought these issues up.
Since the arrest of the Businessman in June 2020, lawyers for Mr. Saab have lodged these same complaints but little action has been seen from the Attorney General’s Office.
Lead counsel for Mr. Saab in Cape Verde, Jose Manuel Pinto, says that even though they have presented evidence to back their claims, authorities of the Regional Prison of Sal, where Mr. Saab is being kept, “no investigation in any way, nor did we receive any information on the status of the investigation”
They have written to the Attorney General to act on the matters brought before him.
The ECOWAS court has ordered Cape Verde to discontinue from processes that will lead to the extradition of Saab to the US.
The government is yet to act on the ruling.
There are fears that Cape Verde’a handling of the matter will go a long way to influence diplomatic relations between countries.
