Maduro’s regime violates EU law: Cave intelligence spies on Citgo’s executives in the North American antelope

The intelligence services of the regime of Nicolás Maduro, spied on for a year in its own right by the six executives of the refiner Citgo Petroleum to determine its relationship with a business that dictates classification as fraudulent, which he left in his detention in 2017 court.

The executives, known as the “Six of Citgo”, fueron condenados in November passed between 8 and 13 years of imprisonment according to a lawsuit filed by the United States Department of State as a “juvenile court”. Five of the detainees are nationalized citizens.

The court documents revised by Reuters including the testimony given by a high Venezuelan military official, Ramón Balza, about the monitor. This testimony has not been previously reported.

Balza, who was appointed as Director of Operations of the Directorate of Military Contraintelligence in Venezuela (DGCIM), said that the intelligence services sent information retrieved in the course of a fiscal year General of the regime, criminal.

Reuters can not contact Balza and the DGCIM does not respond to a request for comment.

The office of Saab and the Ministry of Information of the dictatorship of Venezuela also will not respond to the questions of Reuters.

“Since this company is located in Venezuela, it is monitored by the intelligence agencies of this country, in its directive”, dijo Balza in a tribunal of appeals of Caracas on the 11th of August.

Balza, who carried out the arrests, made a criminal investigation report that was incorporated as evidence in the trial. and that was revised by Reuters. The document indicates that the six men will sign a refinancing contract in July 2017 with Citgo, which, according to the tax authorities, is unfavorable to Venezuela’s interests.

When a detainee defends one of the detainees, the question arises from the information, Balza says that the intelligence services have “telephony” and “things that are related to these people”, without proportioning specific details.

“This is how intelligence agencies work”, dijo. “Eso todo el mundo lo sabe y todos los paises lo hacen”.

The United States has classified Nicolas Maduro as dictator and has imposed sanctions on the Venezuelan state of Venezuela. It has also dealt with all Venezuelan officials in the field of corruption and drug trafficking.

United States imposed sanctions in December on juveniles and the tax authorities in the Citgo case, signaling that the media and defense groups of human rights groups denied access to the juices.

Benjamin Gedan, Deputy Director of the Parasica Latina del Wilson Center Program and former Director of South America at the Casa Blanca National Security Council, said any violation of state law by the Venezuelan intelligence services could bring an opportunity for Washington to “grow energy”.

“If there are violations of the laws of the United States, then there is the risk of being prosecuted and we are always looking for excuses to investigate the members of this regime”, dijo Gedan.

The federal state of the United States prohibits telephone calls without a judicial order and requires that any foreign agent not diplomat be registered with the Department of Justice, following the tax evasion Steven Cash, advocate of the Pitney Day buffet.

“If you were intercepting and listening to telephones in the United States, this would be a crime”, dijo Cash.

Without embarrassment, the testimony will not be clear if the Venezuelan intelligence services violate any of these laws.

Another possible complication for the United States is that the state intelligence services routinely recopile “Human intelligence” about lands donde washington has strategic interests, dijeron a Reuters four executives of the CIA in a report in 2019.

The Department of Justice declined to comment on whether the monitor was taking any action.

The documents of the trial will show that the defense attorneys repeatedly stated that the Tax Office did not present evidence that the defendants of Citgo -José Pereira, José Luis Zambrano, Alirio José Zambrano, Jorge Toledo, Tomeu Vadell and Gustavo Cárdenas- were present.

“Once upon a time [Balza] confess that we are hiccuping, we demand sovereignty and a criminal investigation against those responsible ”, dijo un avogado defensor de Vadell en un communicado, refiriéndose tanto al seguimiento de intelligencia services like the testimony of Balza that the men were arrested before an tribunal emits a judicial order, potentially violating their lawsuit.

The defense attorneys of the other detainees will not comment on the case.

MONEDA DE CAMBIO

The executives are increasingly seen as a potential currency exchange for which Venezuela obtains United States concessions. Maduro alleges fines in February that the men were agents of the CIA, without proportionate evidence, and dismissed his release as a concession to the Biden administration.

“Maduro’s ultimate accusation is nothing more than an inadmissible intention to endorse the lives of the city’s citizens as a whole of politics”, dijo at the moment a portavoz of the Department of State.

In the testimony, Balza and Rafael Franco, who in 2017 started as the special director of the criminal investigators of the DGCIM, dijeron that the military counterintelligence detuvo to the executives by the order of the tax authorities even the DGCIM does not have a physical order manos.

Sondeverbod, Balza and Franco are hearing divergent testimonies about the crucial question of whether a juvenile has approved a judicial order before the men who were arrested, without any potentially illegal detention.

Balza says that the taxpayers are seeking an arrest warrant from a judge who has been detained by the group. Franco testified that the tax that the detainee detained the men said that a juvenile had issued an arrest warrant, although the DGCIM had not received the warrant.

Franco was the employee of the DGCIM responsible for relations with the judicial system, but did not mention the detention or the same.

Reuters do not hesitate to contact Franco to comment.

It seems that the DGCIM wants the Venezuelan men to fly to Venezuela.

“If it’s going to be late, if it’s not taken care of, enthonces like it have the elemental elements, it’s correcting the danger that is happening in the country and it’s hiccuping the actions at the time, enthons is prevented from being prevented from entering into the illegitimate privatization of liberty ”, dijo Balza.

Magaly Vásquez, Venezuelan expert in criminal proceedings of the Catholic University Andrés Bello, said that the Venezuelan law allows agents to detain suspects by order of the tax authorities in cases of “Necessity and exceptional urgency” if there is an order of arrest, and the fiscal information to the agents of that order.

Detain the suspects antes that there is a judicial order of this type illegal series, dijo.

Washington sanctioned Franco in July 2019 for his alleged participation in the torture and death this year by the captain of the Venezuelan Armada, Rafael Acosta Arévalo.

(Reuters info)

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