The businessman Fernando Gil Évora has denied having met with the president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, as an emissary from Cape Verde to discuss the arrest in the African country of the Colombian Álex Saab, accused of being a front man for the Latin American president.
In a statement issued, Gil Évora alluded to a news item published this week by the US newspaper “El Nuevo Herald” that claimed that he and the former director of Tourism and Transportation of Cape Verde Oliveira Gomes Dos Anjos met in secret between Monday and Tuesday with Maduro at the presidential palace in Caracas to address the arrest of Saab, claimed by the US.
“We did not carry out any mission at the behest of any government, nor were we emissaries of anyone. Nor were we in any presidential palace, so we did not contact any president, much less government entities from another country,” said the Cape Verdean businessman. .
“In this sense, it is globally false to speak of political encounters,” said Gil Évora, dismissed this week as chairman of the board of directors of EMPROFAC, a state-owned drug distribution company in this West African island country, due to the controversy of the trip to Venezuela.
The trip, he assured, “resulted from an invitation made by the team of lawyers (of Saab) to a meeting on planning and scheduling of flights and visas for the months of September and October for the island of Sal”, in the north of the Cape Verdean archipelago.
“This mission,” he explained, “was scheduled for Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (a Caribbean country to the north of Venezuela), where we actually traveled, a mission financed entirely by the group of lawyers, who offered to assume the travel expenses in a Spanish private jet. from La Coruña (northwest of Spain), taking into account the lack of connection on commercial flights “.
“The objective of this trip was and was only commercial, the rest being inventions without any foundation”, settled Gil Évora.
The Government of Cape Verde categorically denied this Thursday that it had sent two emissaries to Caracas to establish contacts with Maduro, a version that was repeated this Saturday by the Cape Verdean Prime Minister, Ulisses Correia e Silva, stressing that there is a judicial process underway and should be left work to Justice.
The Government later dismissed Gil Évora as president of the EMPROFAC board of directors for “breach of duties inherent to the public administrator and deviation from the purpose of the functions.”
The case has unleashed a political storm in the African country, where the opposition African Party for the Independence of Cape Verde (PAICV) demanded the Executive “better explanations.”
Saab, 48, was arrested on June 12 when his plane stopped to refuel at the Amilcar Cabral International Airport on the island of Sal (the most important in Cape Verde), in response to a request from the United States sent to through Interpol for alleged money laundering offenses.
Both the Government and a court in the African country have approved the extradition of the Colombian businessman to the United States, although the defense has filed an appeal against the decision of that court before the Supreme Court of Justice of Cape Verde.
After Saab’s arrest, Caracas indicated that he is a Venezuelan citizen and an “agent” of the Government who was “in transit” in Cape Verde, for which his lawyers maintain that “he had the right to personal inviolability as a special envoy from Venezuela. “.
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