Press release
Brussels, December 12th, 2022
From December 12th to 16th, 2022, an evidentiary hearing will be held before the Court for the Southern District of Florida in relation to the right to diplomatic immunity of the Special Envoy of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela Ambassador Alex Saab, illegally detained since June 12 of 2020 and transferred to Miami on October 16, 2021.
Special Envoy Saab has carried out several diplomatic missions before. In particular, he was sent on diplomatic missions from Venezuela to the Islamic Republic of Iran on three occasions: March, April, and June 2020. These missions were in order to obtain critical goods from Iran, including gasoline, food, and medical supplies to help Venezuela to face the threat posed by the COVID-19 pandemic and also the hardships caused by the ongoing US economic sanctions.
The charges against Ambassador Saab stem from Donald Trump’s maximum-pressure campaign to overthrow the Venezuelan government, especially as it relates to illegal US sanctions. Special Envoy Saab is being punished for helping the Venezuelan government build homes, procure food and close trade deals amid a brutal economic war.
Various irregularities occurred in connection with the arrest and extradition of the Special Envoy. The arrest of Ambassador Saab occurred while his plane was refueling in Cape Verde, on his way back to Venezuela from Iran. The Cape Verdean authorities arrested him, alleging that there was an Interpol red notice. There was no such red notice; it was not published until a day later, after the arrest of Ambassador Saab. The Ambassador Saab was named a Venezuelan diplomat in 2018; his detention violates the Vienna Convention.
Personal inviolability is one of the oldest rights of diplomatic agents and is often considered the root of diplomatic immunity. The wording that was stamped in the Vienna Convention does not allow any exception.
Under international law and centuries-old judicial precedent, Ambassador Saab, as a foreign diplomat, is entitled to absolute diplomatic immunity and immunity from prosecution in the US. His status as Special Envoy entitles him to Head of Mission immunity in under Article 14(b) of the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relation. Ambassador Saab’s immunity under the 1961 Convention includes the right of transit (ius transitus innoxii), which means that diplomats, while in transit to and from their posts, are entitled to safe conduct and enjoy immunity from personal inviolability and immunity from arrest and detention.
This right is codified in Article 40 of the 1961 Convention, and has long been accepted, promoted, and demanded by the United States (US). Therefore, the US is bound by its treaty obligations and by customary international law to recognize the diplomatic status of third-country envoys carrying out diplomatic missions. Both the 1961 Convention and well-established customary international law clearly recognize the in transitu privilege of diplomats traveling from one nation to another through a third State.
Ambassador Alex Saab is Special Envoy (since April 9, 2018) and Head of Mission. Therefore, he is a diplomatic agent under the Vienna Convention and is entitled to immunity as such. The US government’s assertion to the contrary on this point only invites the Court to challenge a control precedent.
The United States cannot ignore the immunity of Ambassador Alex Saab as a duly accredited Venezuelan diplomat on Mission.
By arresting and detaining him, the United States has breached its diplomatic immunity and breached its own international legal obligations, in turn potentially endangering hundreds of its own diplomats.
Taking into account that in more than six decades, the EU has developed a role as a global diplomatic actor: the number of its diplomatic missions has increased considerably and it now has an almost universal network, this violation of an international convention that the European Union applies fully in its external relations, the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, in bilateral agreements with third countries and other international organizations, and thanks to which the EU has made an original contribution to international diplomatic law, represents a clear and flagrant violation of international diplomatic law, which must be denounced and rejected in Belgium, the European Union, its institutions and by all its member countries.
This serious violation of international law is a negative precedent that could affect, in the future, the diplomatic performance of officials who hold that status in the European Union.
We alert in this regard and request that the case in question be duly considered by its institutions, in particular, by those that ensure unrestricted respect for Human Rights.
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Mission of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela to the EU
Misión de la República Bolivariana de Venezuela ante la UE
Av. Franklin Roosevelt, 10 -1050 Bruxelles
Tel: 02/639.03.40 / 52 (du lundi au jeudi)
Emails: misionvzla.ue@mppre.gob.ve / misionvenezuela.ue@gmail.com