Several US citizens who have been imprisoned in Venezuela for years have been released in exchange for two relatives of President Nicolás Maduro who were sentenced in the US. Most of the seven released are former US oil executives from Citgo, the US subsidiary of Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA. They were arrested in Venezuela in 2017 and sentenced to long prison terms in 2020 in a corruption trial.
Six of the freed are U.S. citizens and one is a U.S. permanent resident. President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced the release on Saturday. The swap for two cousins of Maduro’s wife was confirmed by a White House official.
The US government criticized the trial of the “Citgo 6” as politically motivated and unfair. One of the six Citgo executives originally convicted was released in March after talks between the US and Venezuela. At the time, observers saw the release as a goodwill gesture by Venezuelan President Maduro’s authoritarian government.
Trade for two cousins of Maduro’s wife
The United States had been trying for years to free the five remaining Citgo managers. When it became clear that this could be achieved by pardoning Maduro’s wife’s two cousins, President Biden made the “tough decision” to grant the wish, the senior US official said. He stressed that such steps would remain a rare exception: “To assume otherwise would be a wrong conclusion.”
The cousins of Venezuela’s First Lady Cilia Flores were each sentenced to 18 years in prison for drug trafficking in the United States in 2017. Franqui Flores and Efraín Campo were arrested in Haiti in 2015 and extradited to the United States for attempting to smuggle large amounts of cocaine into the United States.
According to the researchers, they were not particularly skilled. At the time, given the tensions between Washington and Caracas, Maduro said it was a political move by the United States to attack his wife.
Source: Krone
I’m Wayne Wickman, a professional journalist and author for Today Times Live. My specialty is covering global news and current events, offering readers a unique perspective on the world’s most pressing issues. I’m passionate about storytelling and helping people stay informed on the goings-on of our planet.
