Cape Verde court approves extradition of Maduro ally Alex Saab to US

On a Monday in early January, a court in Cape Verde made a decision that would send a Colombian businessman toward American custody and defy a regional African tribunal in the process. Alex Saab, a 49-year-old entrepreneur born in Barranquilla with Lebanese roots, had been detained since June when his plane stopped to refuel on the island of Sal. He was arrested at the request of the United States, which had filed charges through Interpol alleging money laundering on a massive scale.

The Cape Verde Court of Appeal approved his extradition to the United States. The charges against him were specific: he and an associate named Álvaro Enrique Pulido stood accused of laundering as much as $350 million—money allegedly stolen through Venezuela's currency control system. Saab's alleged role was as a financial operative for Nicolás Maduro, the Venezuelan dictator. He had maintained a low profile for years until 2017, when a former Venezuelan prosecutor named Luisa Ortega publicly identified him as one of Maduro's front men.

The timing of the court's decision created an immediate legal collision. Just over a month earlier, on December 2, the West African regional court—the Economic Community of West African States tribunal, known as Cedeao—had issued its own ruling. That court ordered Cape Verde to place Saab under house arrest instead. The regional tribunal, headquartered in Abuja and including Cape Verde as a member state, had sided with Saab's defense team. Now the appellate court in Cape Verde was moving in the opposite direction, and Saab's lawyers called it a direct affront to the regional order.

Saab's legal team issued a statement expressing their view that the decision represented a continuation of what they characterized as a troubling pattern. The Cape Verdean courts, they argued, had systematically refused to engage seriously with the defense's arguments. They believed the ruling violated both Cape Verdean law and the country's constitution. They announced plans to appeal to the Supreme Court of Justice and to challenge the decision with what they described as the most vigorous opposition possible.

José Manuel Pinto Monteiro, Saab's lead local attorney, drew a pointed comparison. He noted that a British court had recently rejected the extradition of Julian Assange to the United States, accepting many of the same legal arguments that Saab's defense had presented in Cape Verde. Those arguments had fallen on deaf ears in Barlavento, Pinto Monteiro said. He also contended that the court's refusal to recognize Saab's immunity and inviolability under long-established customary international law would have lasting consequences for Cape Verde itself.

The money at the center of the case traced back to a Venezuelan government food assistance program called CLAP. Saab was connected to Group Grand Limited, a company accused of supplying food to the program at inflated prices. A U.S. government official had stated in July 2019 that Saab and three of Maduro's stepsons had apparently profited from the CLAP scheme to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. The $350 million figure represented the government's estimate of what had been laundered through currency manipulation—money that should have remained in Venezuela's treasury.

Saab had been held in detention for more than six months by the time the appellate court ruled. The United States had taken the threat of his escape seriously enough to send naval vessels to Cape Verde. His legal team now faced the question of whether Cape Verde's highest court would overturn the appellate decision, or whether Saab would be handed over to American authorities to face trial. The regional court's order remained technically in force, creating a standoff between national and international law that would test Cape Verde's commitments to both.