The Maduro government has lashed out at the European Union giving its ambassador 72 hours to leave the country after the bloc announced that it was levying sanctions against 11 individuals with connections to the regime.
Earlier today, the EU sanctioned Luis Parra and other members of the Maduro-approved opposition in the National Assembly along with other regime officials for “acting against the democratic functioning of the National Assembly”.
The sanctions ban travel to the EU and freeze any assets that the individuals may have there.
Speaking during a televised address following the announcement of the sanctions, Maduro said:
I’ve decided to give the ambassador from the European Union in Caracas 72 hours to leave our country. No more European colonialism in Venezuela!
Maduro suggested that the European Union was made up of “colonialists, supremacists and racists”, and said that “Venezuela isn’t afraid of anyone”. Mockingly, Maduro said:
Wow, I’m so cared! The European Union sanctions are coming. So scary!
Minister of Foreign Affairs Jorge Arreaza called the sanctions another example of “intervention” by the European Union in Venezuelan affairs, and said that they were illegal and that they constituted an “aggression and persecution” against Venezuela.
The sanctioned individuals are:
- José Ornelas Ferreira
- Gladys del Valle Requena
- Tania Díaz Gonzalez
- Elvis Eduardo Hidrobo Amoroso
- Juan José Mendoza Jover
- Jorge Eliezer Marquez Monsalve
- Farik Karin Mora Salcedo
- Franklyn Leonardo Duarte
- Dinora Bustamante Puerta
- José Gregorio Noriega Figueroa
- Luis Eduardo Parra Rivero
Many of the individuals on the list (including Parra,
Bloomberg: US Formally Requests Saab Extradition
Bloomberg is reporting today that the United States has formally requested the extradition of Alex Saab, the businessman at the heart of a corruption scandal that reaches Maduro himself.
Saab is a powerful businessman who is implicated in a corruption scheme worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Saab is accused of siphoning money from the CLAP food distribution network through his connections in government, including to Maduro himself.
He was arrested in Cabo Verde on June 12 when the airplane in which he was flying stopped on the island.
According to Bloomberg, U.S. authorities are in the process of asking their counterparts in Cabo Verde to transfer Saab to their custody so that he may answer to the charges against him in a U.S. court.
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