WASHINGTON — The U.S. has reached a deal with the Venezuelan government to release an ally of President Nicolás Maduro in exchange for freeing 10 jailed Americans and a group of Venezuelan political prisoners, senior Biden administration officials said Wednesday.
The Maduro ally, Alex Saab, is a Colombian businessman who was arrested in 2020 for his alleged role in a money laundering scheme involving the bribery of Venezuelan government officials and $350 million in Venezuelan assets.
The State Department said Americans include six people who were being wrongfully detained. While the administration officials declined to name the Americans being released, the identities of three of the six wrongfully detained Americans previously were confirmed as Eyvin Hernandez, Jerrel Kenemore and Joseph Cristella.
As part of the arrangement, Venezuela will also extradite Leonard Francis, better known as “Fat Leonard,” who was behind one of the worst bribery scandals in U.S. Navy history. In 2022, weeks before his sentencing, Leonard fled to Venezuela after escaping house arrest by cutting off his ankle monitoring bracelet.
Biden “had to make the extremely difficult decision to offer something that the Venezuelan counterparts have actively sought,” one senior administration official said. “And he made the decision to grant clemency to Alex Saab, who was pending trial for money laundering, and allow his return to Venezuela in what was essentially an exchange of 10 Americans and a fugitive from justice for one person returned to Venezuela.”
The agreement also requires the Maduro government to release 20 Venezuelan political prisoners as well as opposition party member Roberto Abdul and suspend the arrest warrants for three other Venezuelans.
The deal follows the relaxation of U.S. sanctions on Venezuela in October in exchange for progress toward free and fair elections. As a caveat to the agreement, the Biden administration threatened to pull back its sanctions relief if Venezuela did not release both American and Venezuelan political prisoners.
Qatar facilitated the conversations between Maduro authorities and the Biden administration, the senior administration officials said.
The talks included Secretary of State Antony Blinken, national security adviser Jake Sullivan and deputy national security adviser Jon Finer. Discussions had been going on since May and were aimed at “clearing a path toward a competitive election in 2024 and the return of wrongfully detained Americans,” the officials said.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
