The Venezuelan Prosecutor’s Office issues a new arrest warrant against Juan Guaidó

The Attorney General of Venezuela, Tarek William Saab, announced this Thursday that his office has issued an arrest warrant with a red alert to Interpol against the opposition leader Juan Guaidó, under accusations of treason, association to commit a crime and legitimization of capitals.

The procedure of the Prosecutor’s Office, controlled by Chavismo, is based on information commented on social networks that includes a ruling from the Delaware Court, in which it is stated that Guaidó used money from Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), through of its subsidiary Citgo, to finance its personal and political projects. According to what economist Francisco Rodríguez commented, this operation could cause losses of “19 million dollars” and put the nation at risk of losing Citgo, the seventh largest oil refinery in the United States, owned by the Venezuelan State. which is currently the subject of litigation on US soil.

Guaidó, and the parallel position he appointed as PDVSA manager, Horacio Medina, have denied Rodríguez. They argue that the amount in danger and the legal harassment against Citgo are a consequence of the procedures used since the time of Hugo Chávez against the Canadian company Cryslatex when expropriating its assets in Venezuela ten years ago. They affirm that all the movements of Citgo and PDVSA have been audited by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and the United States Government – ​​which maintains its support for Guaidó – and highlight the good financial health of the company controlled by the opposition in exile.

Saab – as well as Nicolás Maduro and Diosdado Cabello – has already made several similar pronouncements of judicial accusations against Guaidó, even when he was still in Venezuela. The Delaware court’s ruling allows Saab to once again request an alert from Interpol, which has also been requested on other occasions against other Venezuelan activists opposed to Chavismo, without a response from the international police network. The opponent has been in exile in Miami for a few months and has just received an offer from Florida International University as a visiting professor.

The economist Francisco Rodríguez, professor at the University of Denver, the voice that opened the controversy with the news, is an academic who has been proposing an agreement to lift international sanctions on Venezuela for some time, and has been a repeated critic of Guaidó, Leopoldo López, of the so-called Interim government and the opposition strategy to save Citgo.

In his account, justifying his criticism, he has expressed: “Given that two United States courts have confirmed that decisions by officials of the interim government made possible the issuance of embargo orders for 10 billion against Citgo, I maintain that the National Assembly should open a investigation to clarify the reason for these decisions.”

Guaidó has stated, to respond to Rodríguez, that “the illegal issuance of bonds, expropriations and mortgages to the country – during Chávez’s time – caused losses to the nation”, also alluding to the embezzlements of the former Minister of Petroleum Tareck El Aissami , and promised to expand his defense in an appearance on social networks.

The jurist Juan Ignacio Hernández, who served as comptroller in Guaidó’s team—very personally opposed to Rodríguez—has repeatedly pointed out that he has personal interests in the Citgo litigation and for promoting deliberately biased accusations on these issues. Upon learning of Saab’s announcement, he expressed on his X account (social network formerly known as Twitter): “Anne Applebaum says that authoritarianism requires false intellectuals to justify her actions. “Those who manipulate facts with a technical veneer to promote crimes of persecution must also be responsible, including before the International Criminal Court.”

Follow all the international information onFacebook andxor inour weekly newsletter.