The defense team of Alex Saab, Venezuelan diplomat, unlawfully arrested in Cape Verde, held a press conference on Thursday to provide a timely update on the detention of Mr Saab, who has now been in captivity for 308 days.
The Press Conference was led by Africa’s leading Human Rights lawyer Femi Falana, and by leading Cape Verde constitutional and criminal lawyer Dr Jose-Manuel Pinto Monteiro, Saab’s lead counsel in Cape Verde.
Mr Pinto in an emotional statement, having recently met with Saab, said his client had been deprived of his most basic human rights, humiliated, ill-treated and threatened.
He said that Saab’s health had deteriorated.
Cape Verdean authorities detained Alex Saab on 12 June 2020, in response to an international arrest warrant circulated by INTERPOL at the request of the United States.
Saab is accused by US prosecutors in Miami of money laundering offences in connection with a contract to build houses for a social welfare programme launched during President Hugo Chavez’s time in office.
