 going on in Latin America and the Caribbean, a popular resistance broadcast of hot news out of the region. In partnership with Black Alliance for Peace, Haiti America's team, Code Pink, Common Frontiers, Council on Hemispheric Affairs, Friends of Latin America, Interreligious Task Force on Central America, Massachusetts Peace Action, and Task Force on the Americas, we broadcast Thursdays at 4.30 p.m. Pacific, 7.30 p.m. Eastern, right here on YouTube Live, including channels for the Convo Couch, Popular Resistance, and Code Pink. Today, this is a special holiday broadcast on Friday, December 30th. Watch for us next week on Thursday again. Post broadcast recordings can be found at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Telegram, redindymedia.com, and now under podcast at popularresistance.org. Today's episode, sob oral agreement focuses on legitimacy of the Maduro government, and our guest, our returning guest for all of you, you'll recognize him, is author Latin, labor attorney, human rights activist, and great friend, I was going to say Latin American activist solidarity partner in crime with me, Dan Kovalec, and Dan is also with Council on Hemispheric Affairs, which is one of our broadcast partners. So welcome, Dan, always great to have a conversation with you. Thank you, Terry. Good to be here. So let me give all of you a quick background as to what our conversation is going to be based on today, and just so all of you know there has been a few updates in the last couple of days, so we've got a lot to talk about. So here we go. On December 20th, in the U.S. District Court of Southern Florida, Judge Robert N. Skola heard oral arguments on Alex Sob's motion to dismiss the case against him. The factual issue for the court to decide was, quote, and these are Dan's words, all of you, whether Mr. Sob was a special envoy from Venezuela to Iran, traveling on a mission when he was detained in Cape Verde and extradited to the United States and therefore entitled to diplomatic immunity. Dan was present for the hearing and we'll discuss in detail the hearing results and what has ensued since December 20th. I should also let all of you know that this program has been following the case of Alex Sob since his detainment in Cape Verde 12 June 2020. Today is our third episode focusing on this case and I will include in the program notes links to a couple of Dan's articles that we're going to talk about today and also the two prior WTF episodes that focused on the Sob case. So Dan, welcome. We've got a lot to talk about today. Yes, it's a very rich case. Well, so maybe for the audience, it might be good to just give a quick recap of who Alex Sob is and what happened in June of 2020 that has led to the judge ruling he does not have diplomatic immunity. This has been going on for two plus years. Yeah, so Alex Sob is an interesting guy, is an interesting background. He's actually Middle Eastern by birth. He's half Palestinian. His dad was Palestinian and his mother was Lebanese. And his father was a Palestinian businessman who moved the family to Colombia, South America to do business, which is where Sob grew up. Now, this may sound strange to people, but it's not. They moved to Barranquilla. I believe either Barranquilla or Santa Marta. Anyway, on the Caribbean coast, there's a lot of people of Arab descent there and also Jewish descent. During World War II, Jews fled to Colombia. So it's a very, anyway, interesting demographic demographic fact about about Colombia. In any case, Sob himself became a Colombian businessman as well and then started doing business with Venezuela. And in the course of his business dealings, he started doing some business around the housing projects of the Chavez Maduro governments as well as helping get food for the food program known as the CLAP. And the CLAP is a direct result of US sanctions against Venezuela. That's correct. They're not able to import foods, food products. And yeah, and Sob became very adept at navigating US sanctions to get food to Venezuela, to get building supplies to Venezuela, to get oil to Venezuela. And at some point in 2018, he is appointed by the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry as a special envoy to officially represent Venezuela with other governments like the government of Iran, but also Russia, again, in pursuit of oil, food, medicines, building supplies for Venezuela. And in the course of his diplomatic work, he went to Russia once and he went to Iran twice to procure, again, these food, medicine, oil for Venezuela. They would actually, Venezuela would pay for the supplies in gold. And Sob actually used his own plane to carry the gold to Iran and to bring the supplies back. And then the Venezuelans are using gold for financial transactions because they have no access to the global financial market. They cannot use US dollars. Nor can they use the Swift overnight banking system. And they also sit on a lot of gold. Their nation has a lot of gold under it. So he used his own plane to bring this gold, which is kind of incredible. And so then he is going to make a third trip to Iran for the same purpose at this point to just negotiate another deal for food and medicine for Venezuela. And at the hearing, one of the people who testified was Sob's security guard, who, by the way, was provided by the government for him because he was a diplomat, who went to Milaflores, the presidential palace of Nicholas Maduro, before this last attempted trip to Iran. And the security guard testified that he was handed at that meeting some diplomatic pouches, which included correspondence from Nicholas Maduro and the president and Delcey Rodriguez, the vice president to different officials in Iran. The letter from Maduro was actually to the supreme leader. And the security guard testified that when he escorted Sob to his plane, he took note of the items he was carrying. And again, those included these letters in sealed diplomatic pouches. Sob then flies towards Iran, but he has to refuel on the way. And he wanted to refuel in the west coast of Africa and Senegal or Morocco. But I lost your audio. I'm not sure we lost your audio. Hello. Yeah, there you are. Okay. At what point did I cut off? So he wanted so he's flying. This is his third trip to Iran. He has to refuel on his way from Venezuela to Tehran. And he wants to stop in Senegal or Morocco. He wants. Yeah. So Sob wants to stop either in Morocco or Senegal on the west coast of Africa. He's denied the right to do that. And it's thought because the US pressured those countries don't let him land. So that forced him to land in Cabo Verde, which was a Portuguese colony. And it's a group of it's a nation that is made up of several islands off the coast of West Africa. So he lands in Cabo Verde. His plan is to stay on the plane and just refuel on the runway and keep going. But when he lands, the Cabo Verde officials are there prepared to arrest him. They do arrest him under a request by the United States. The US claimed that there was an Interpol notice for his arrest. But turns out that that notice was not made until about a day later after his arrest. But the US did ask Cabo Verde to arrest him. He was arrested. And he was held on Cabo Verde for over a year. Again, at the request of the United States. Now, one interesting thing that happened at the hearing was as follows. So the prosecution has been claiming for some time, they basically would claim that all the facts the defense is saying aren't true. All the facts that make up their claim he's a diplomat. One of the things that claim was not true was the existence of these letters, the diplomatic letters that I mentioned. They said those weren't created till after the fact. They were fabricated after the fact to try to prove he was a diplomat when he wasn't. Okay. So a very interesting thing at the hearing was the defense brought a young lawyer from Cabo Verde to Miami who testified that he went to see Saab in prison in Cabo Verde. Discovered that contrary to the policy of the Cabo Verde corrections department, he was never given an option as to who to give his property to when he was arrested. So all the property remained in the possession of the prison officials. So the lawyer said, well, Mr. Saab, why don't you, if you want, I will take those into my possession and take care of them. But you have to sign this note as saying I give you the right to take possession of my goods. And so he does that. The young lawyer presents that to the prison officials. He takes Saab's possessions, which included one big suitcase and a smaller suitcase. He takes those home. And then within about 45 minutes, he opens those up. And within the suitcase, he finds these diplomatic letters in sealed diplomatic pouches. But the seals were broken and the letters were opened. Clearly someone had looked at these. Now, here's an interesting little part of this. On the top of the copies of the letters that were presented in evidence and that we saw were some markings. This was the prosecution presented. No, this was the defense presented. Okay. Okay, sorry. No, that's okay. They asked them about these markings at the top, which showed a date. I think the date was June 20th, 2020. I lost your audio again. Stop. We lost your voice again. No, I can't hear you. Sorry. There. Okay. Okay. Sorry about that. I don't know. Too animated when you're talking. Right. Okay. I will try to be still. Okay. No, it's great. Keep going. Okay. So they ask him, the defense asks him about these markings at the top of all the letters that indicated date, June 20th, I believe 2020. I believe that's the date, which was the day he was arrested in Cabo Verde. And next to that was something that showed a JPEG, okay, which suggested that these documents had been photographed on that day and then maybe shown to someone else. Okay. And they asked the defense. Photographed and sent somewhere, maybe. Well, yes. We're sure. Yeah. So the defense says to the lawyer, were those markings at the top of those letters when you saw them? And he said no, which means the letters, the copies of the letters that the lawyer saw did not have those markings at the top. They were made, at some other point. And those were the copies, by the way, those letters with the markings at the top showing they've been copied. Those had been given by the prosecution to the defense in the course of discovery. The American prosecution, right? So most likely is that it was given to the Americans. It was copied and shown to American officials. Yeah. From Cabo Verde, where he saw them. Yeah. Right. So the Americans and the people in Cabo Verde darn well knew he was a diplomat with diplomatic pouches. Yeah. Wow. And then, of course, the prosecution, I would argue, did not tell the truth. In fact, they lied when they tried to claim, oh, these were created after the fact. No. Because this lawyer saw the originals without those markings. Yeah. The young lawyer. Yeah. And it varied within days after Saad had been arrested. Okay. Yeah. And then the interesting thing is the prosecution lawyer tries to cross-examine the young lawyer. And by the way, he asks some questions at first that have nothing to do really with the letters. He's just trying to impeach the guy. And the defense stands up and objects, says, look, this is beyond the cross-scope. This is irrelevant. And the judge gets flustered and finally says to the prosecution lawyer, are you going to challenge? We lost your audio. We lost you. Are you going to challenge? Sorry. No. Okay. I don't know why this has happened. In any case, I think I know where I, so... Are you going to challenge the young lawyer? Right. And the defense, or sorry, the prosecution lawyer says no, we're not going to challenge that. And the judge is like, well, then why are you asking these questions at six o'clock p.m.? And the guy just sits down. So it's unrebudded that the lawyer saw these things. So the long and short of it is this, the evidence, uncontroverted evidence shows Saab was a special envoy appointed by the foreign ministry in 2018, by the way, at a time when the U.S. recognized Nicolas Maduro as president. Correct. And that at the time he was seized in Cabo Verde, he was on a diplomatic mission from Venezuela with diplomatic papers going to Iran and that Iran had accepted his mission and him as an envoy. And so the defense's argument was, well, then we satisfy all the elements for him as a special envoy protected by diplomatic immunity. And they cite this case. There's an 11 set circuit case involving a Saudi diplomat under similar circumstances, not identical but similar. And they say under that precedent, he should be given diplomatic immunity just like the Saudi was in the 11th circuit. And by the way, he's being held in Miami, which is in the 11th circuit. So everything looks pretty good as to the law for this guy. But ultimately, the judge rules against the defense and finds he does not have diplomatic immunity. And the opinions rather, well, it's not terribly long for a court opinion, but it's kind of involved. And he goes through a bunch of steps. The first steps he goes through, he says, well, first of all, I find he's not a diplomat because Nicolas Maduro is not the president of Venezuela. The government is illegitimate because the State Department says so. Because he's representing Maduro, I find he's not a legitimate diplomat. Okay. But then, of course, we all disagree with that. And of course, the other argument that defense had was, look, even if you put aside who the proper president is, no one disputes that the foreign ministry is the proper diplomatic wing of the Venezuelan government, whatever that is. And that the U.S. he... Whether it's Maduro's foreign ministry or Guaido's foreign ministry, it's still the same institute. Guaido's getting his passport from the same ministry that Saab got. He doesn't have his own foreign ministry at all. But he rejects that or doesn't even when you get to that. But so he goes through a several things where he says, look, Maduro... We lost you. You froze just a bit. Yeah. He says, even if Maduro... Let's assume Maduro is president. I don't think he is, but let's assume he is. He just says, still he's not a diplomat because I find he was a temporary diplomat on a temporary mission in transit to his diplomatic destination, which was Iran. And therefore he finds under the Vienna Convention, which he finds is the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, he finds that he does not have transit Tory protection in a place at Cabo Verde where he's on his way to a destination because, one, Cabo Verde did not accept him as a diplomat and neither has the U.S. accepted him as a diplomat. And that's how he distinguishes the Saudi case in the 11th Circuit. He said in the Saudi case, ultimately after the fact, by the way, after the dispute arises with the Saudi official, the U.S. accepts his diplomatic status upon the request of Saudi Arabia, but he said that never happened here. Neither Cabo Verde nor the U.S. accepted his diplomatic status or accepted him as an envoy, and therefore I find he does not have... We lost your audio. Hello? Yep. There you are. Okay. Where did he lose it? So he doesn't have diplomatic... The Saudi was recognized as having diplomatic status because the United States, ultimately after the fact, recognized it. Whereas with Alex Saab, the United States, nor Cabo Verde, they recognized him as having diplomatic status while he was in transit. Right. Now, first of all, I think there's a huge doubt about all that because we know, and this is put in evidence, we know from Mark Esper's book, that the U.S. was talking about the fact that Saab was a diplomat behind the scenes. That is, they were concerned with his arrest, they wanted his arrest, but they also said, look, we may have problems with it because he's a diplomat. This is Mark Esper, the former Secretary of Defense. Right. And he wrote this kind of tell-all book, and he talks a little bit about the Saab case, and he said people were talking about this and worried about this and recognized he was a diplomat. But the judge doesn't deal with that. You know, again, the problem is the judge defers just entirely to the State Department about what they want in this case and what they think in this case, even though it may not be truly what they ever thought, but in any case. But according to his ruling, the problem I see with his ruling, and many do, is how do you have diplomatic relations when really in the end it's up to the, any country that wants to arrest a diplomat, it's up to them to say, oh, I recognize you as a diplomat, regardless of whether your country recognizes you as a diplomat. We're just going to, you know, the whole idea behind diplomatic immunity, and this goes back centuries, right? Yeah, right. It's the idea that if I send a diplomat from Rome to Athens, and he comes to Athens and he says, you know, hey, the king wants you or the emperor, you know, wants to talk to you about making peace, the whole idea is you shouldn't shoot the guy, right? He should, you know, or because then you never send a diplomat, right? If you shoot the messenger, no one's going to send you a message and we don't think that's good. We think it's good for the relations between countries to have messengers like this who have immunity and aren't going to be shot because that you don't like their message, right? Well, and that's what the letters are for, correct? The letters are to show the king of Spain has sent me, you know, to the emperor of Rome. This is the letter saying I'm supposed to be, that's what those letters are all about. And ambassadors still exchange. They still have to show the letter. And you should be protected on your way there too for the same reason. And if you have a diplomatic pouch, that should be inviolate. You should not, no one should be grommaging through it or stealing it or whatever. You should be protected. I don't want it done to yourself in return. Well, that's the problem. And what, you know, in the end, the US's position on all this is, well, we're strong enough to protect our diplomats. If you take one of our diplomats, we'll just bomb your country, right? We're strong enough to just use brute force to protect our diplomats. But we, because we're so strong, we're just going to decide willy-nilly if any country we don't like, if their diplomats are bona fide or not, you know, and again, you can't have an international system like that. It won't work and it's not working. I mean, this international is broken down because of this, because of selective justice, selective application of conventions. Led by the United States. Led by the United States, that narrative. We've done it. We did it on purpose. We destroyed the international legal system, because again, we thought we were above it. We have all the power militarily, economically. And, you know, one of the best examples of this, of course, is the International Criminal Court, which, you know, Bill Clinton helped negotiate the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. He tried to weaken it as much as possible to prevent it from applying to the US. He then signed that convention or the Rome Statute, but he never got it ratified. And then George W. Bush unsigned it. So the US never became a party to the Rome Statute, but of course, it tries to apply it to every other country, you know, right? It's going to try to apply it against Russia now. For example, meanwhile, the US doubled down on its own lack of acceptance of the Rome Statute of the ICC by passing what's known as the Invasion of the Hague Act, which George W. Bush signed into law, which says the US can invade the Hague to rescue any US persons who the ICC wants to prosecute, okay? So that's how insane the US's position is on international law. We have the right to invade the Hague to stop the ICC from prosecuting one of our own, but we're going to make sure other countries are prosecuted by the ICC. Well, this is why the world is barking at the US. It's like, well, this is absurd and therefore, you know, and, you know, Father Miguel Discoto, who was the foreign minister of Nicaragua and who became the president of the UN General Assembly, he said while he was president, he said when there were debates about the ICC and its application, he said, I believe that the ICC should prosecute no one until it has the right to prosecute everyone. Everyone. Yeah. You cannot have this selective justice system. You cannot have a selective diplomatic system, but that's what's been set up. And that's where we are. And I think this judge, who seemed very smart, seemed fair, at least in that way he handled the hearing, in the end, I think he buckled to pressure from the executive branch of the US government, which again, we have a separation of powers in these countries. And it was always recognized that the judicial branch should have the most protection because from being bullied by the by the executive branch and the legislature, because the judicial branch has no power, right, as in either the power of the sword that the executive branch has or the purse, which the legislative branch has. So we should be very cautious about allowing it to be influenced and pressured by the other branches. And yet this is an example, I believe, where the court just buckled to the executive branch and basically threw its hands up and said, State Department doesn't recognize Maduro. It didn't recognize this guy as a diplomat, so I'm going to punt. And I'm going to just rule against the defense and they can appeal. And if someone disagrees with me, let the appellate court disagree. And by the way, more or less said that nor argue. He kept saying, whatever I do, I'm just going to be appealed anyway. So, you know, so I don't really have to do anything. Yeah, you know, he's an older judge, as most judges are, most judges are long in the tooth. And you know, why not take it? Why not take a stand and take a chance? I mean, if you're if you're overturned on appeal, you don't lose your job. It's still alive. But that's where we're at. It's a really sad situation because I think lurking behind the case and it felt this way at the hearing and what things were said lurking behind the case again, is this is, you know, the US's, you know, American judicial reach over judicial reach, but also American exceptionalism that we are the, you know, you know, we are the indispensable nation that can do what we want. And when there's countries like Venezuela and Iran that we really don't respect and we don't really treat them as equals, you know, we're just going to do what we want with them. And we're not, we're going to treat their diplomats not like other ones. If this was a case deal, you know, involving France or the UK, this would have come out so differently, you know, we're not going to not recognize their government or not recognize their diplomats because they're fellow white people, you know, I'm sorry, but that's what it comes down to their fellow European also part of what the US defines as the international community, the international community. You know, I lost you. Okay, I can hear you now. I can hear you. I couldn't hear you either. So the United States defines the who composes the international, who comprises the international community. And the, and then within that community, the US defines the rules based order. And there's a whole lot of countries that are excluded from that, including Venezuela and Iran and Nicaragua and Cuba and probably China by the end of the day. And all, you know, there's a very, you know, I got in this conversation with somebody about is this becoming like an inverse iron curtain and it's almost like the US is self isolating. Yeah. Well, yeah, I'd like to say a couple things about that. Or the West is so isolated, it's probably better. So one, I agree with you on that point. First, I want to say this, that the UN, the basic premise of the UN Charter, and it says it in the UN Charter, which the US helped draft and was one of the original signatories. It says every nation is sovereign and every member of the UN is an equal member, right? It's, you know, there's no, there's no hierarchy, right? Every country is equal under the UN Charter. So this view that we're talking about that the US has for some of these other countries defies the UN Charter, that the US is a member of an out draft. But something you said, I think, is true about this iron curtain thing. Even when the so-called iron curtain existed, you could freely travel to the Soviet Union, for example, even on an air of law Russian aircraft from New York City, say. I lost your audio. You have to sit still. I still can't hear you. Can you hear me now? Yeah, yes. So back then, if you, especially if you're an American, with an American passport, you could pretty much travel anywhere pretty easily. Most people could. And by the way, back in biblical times, you know, you have, for example, the example of Saint Paul, who was Saul, who went from Jerusalem to Damascus, right by land, presumably on a camel or a walk there or something. You can't do that anymore. You cannot go from Jerusalem to Damascus, Syria, by land and nor can you fly there. And it's almost impossible to fly to Damascus. I know this because I've gone to Damascus and for the most part, you have to fly to Lebanon and then drive from Beirut about four hours to Damascus. It's not an easy journey. And we can find many examples of this. If you live in Gaza, you can't even leave Gaza, right? And it's very hard, if not impossible, to travel to Gaza anymore, which now is a wall around it. After the sanctions imposed on Russia after February of this year, you cannot fly directly to Russia. Again, this wasn't even true during the Cold War. You could fly directly to Russia. Now you have to go either through Turkey or you fly to Helsinki, Finland, and then even then you have to drive into Russia, the train between Helsinki and Russia, which even Lenin used during World War One. You can't use that train. That train's closed now. So I've been saying for a while, and I think you what you were saying touches on this, the world has gotten bigger. It hasn't gotten smaller. It's gotten bigger. And that's true with Venezuela, which is now very hard to fly due from the U.S. because of sanctions, Nicaragua, which has become harder to fly to Cuba, which is also harder to get to because of sanctions and the embargo. So yes, the world is a bigger place, a harder place to navigate. Now in 2022, almost 2023, then it was say 20 years ago or 30 years ago or even again during the Cold War. And that's a very regrettable and sad fact, but that is the fact. We have these two, I mean, a lot of people in particular, a lot of our friends will talk about this multilateral world emerging. And we truly see that throughout Latin America and the Caribbean and the alignment with Venezuela and Iran and Russia and all, not just aligning with the West. And that was very clear in the Salax Summit in September of 2021 in Mexico City. But what? It's like, I forget, I'm not sure what the right word is. You see, I hesitate to say it's a multilateral world because to me, just as we were talking, this international community, this definition of what the international community is and rules based order is definitely Western Europe, Canada, United States, New Zealand, Australia. And it's almost more of a two or a buy. People are going to laugh when I say a bipolar world. You have the Western, the West as defined by the United States, and then the rest of the world, Russia, China, Iran, India, many countries in Latin America. It's two. It isn't necessarily multi to me as much as it is a buy. The world is splitting in two again, like the first Cold War. The Eurasian component, the Asia Pacific component, the non West component is multi polarity within that component. But the world as a whole is becoming two components. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think that's true. And the reason for that is that the US wanted to be the unipolar world, right? I want to be the only and now other countries are emerging and so and they're joining with each other. So basically, it's the US, it's Western European partners, Japan, Australia against everyone else. That's essentially what we're seeing. By the way, I have to also say because we just finished Christmas and for my orthodox friends, they're heading into Christmas on January 7th. When we talk about the world getting bigger, I'm sure you've seen this meme for Christmas that if Mary and Joseph had to go from Nazareth to Bethlehem, now they'd have to go through 15 chick points. The baby would not have been born. Yeah, or the baby would have been born in a checkpoint. And who knows what would have happened to it and would have had to pass a wall as well. So I think that's a very important meme. I think that's a very important thing to reflect on during the holidays. I mean, this is where the world we live in now. It's not, you know, after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the, you know, the US declaring itself the world's only power, you know, the promise of that that the US was making was that it would make a more just and democratic and peaceful world. And it's been anything but that. The US has made sure it's been anything but that. And that's a fact. And that's what we're seeing now. That's why we see the rise of this, as you say, either either duo, polar world or multi-polar world is the rest of the world sick of it. Yeah. And they have the ability to build. They have the economic ability and also the will now to, to collaborate right. Yeah. Yeah. And it's and that and that world that's emerging to me is very, very exciting. It is. And it's necessary. It had, again, the US has lost its right to rule. I mean, it, you know, I mean, it had the world, it had the control of the world and it used it very, very wrongly, you know, by invading other countries, creating tens of millions of refugees through its wars of choice. And the world has said, look, we're done. Bye-bye. And you're going to see that rejection happening more and more because it's not sustainable. Can we, in our last few minutes, can we just go back real quick to that case of Alex Sob, because there's a few things I'd like to share with the audience. And I think this is, in listening to you speak about what you witnessed in the court last week in Miami, I think this is something really important to reiterate with the audience that Alex Sob was made a special envoy by the Venezuelan president, vice president, foreign ministry in 2018. President Maduro was re-elected by the Venezuelan people May of 2018. I don't know if you were there for that. I took a delegation. I was there. Yes. Okay. Yeah. And I was, I was there as well. So just so the audience know, we were there. It wasn't democratic. I was here for both Maduro elections. Yeah. And, you know, and then inauguration day, or inauguration was January of 2019. And it was in February of 2019 that that the Venezuelans or the U.S. State Department gave the Venezuelans their stand up president, Juan Guaido. So it's this whole thing of who was president and when it's really clear under which presidency under which foreign ministry the the the special instructions were written for Alex Sob. I mean, they weren't written. They were written before the stand up president. So or the U.S. appointed president is probably a more appropriate. I mean, it's clear. I don't there's there's really not even a way I don't how do you even argue around that, except like you said earlier, the prosecution is making up facts as they go along, rewriting history, whatever that crazy notion comes out of Washington, D.C. It's true. It's true. Oh, I want to say one other thing. There was there is kind of a nice moment in the in the hearing. There was a woman who works in the passport office of the foreign Israel and passport office. Yeah. She was a witness and she testified from Venezuela. Okay, via video. And she was a very I really liked her a lot. She was by the way in the compiler services. Is that yeah, yeah. And she was clear, clearly a Shavista because when they swore in she held held up her little blue Constitution and swore on the Constitution. I mean, when she's asked to swear on the Constitution, but no one no one held the book in front of her, but she had her own that she held up. Good for her. But she said a few great things. So first of all, the prosecution tried to trick her by saying, Well, you know, they tried to ask her a question about the Guaido government. And she said, Well, first of all, I want to say there is not and has never been a Guaido government. The duly elected president Nicholas Maduro. But the other thing she said, and I think this is probably a good thing to end on to really give people an impression about Alex Sob and what he was doing. When she was asked about sob, we she said at some point she said, Well, we in Venezuela are very thankful for Alex Sob for taking the risk he did to get us food and medicine, you know, that that's what he was doing in his diplomatic work. And that was what he was doing. And he saved a lot of lives by what he was doing. And to me, that's what this case is also at its root about the fact that he, you know, that's what he was working to do that he risked his life and liberty to do it. And he's now sitting in jail because he did do it. And in Miami, right, and we didn't, we didn't specifically mention his extradition. You meant you did mention he was detained in Cabo Verde there for a year. And then that whole argument as to whether he was going to be extradited to the United States or not. And then it should be mentioned he was extradited to the US, though there is no extradition treaty between the US and Cabo Verde. And even though Cabo Verde will find an exception to that, will sometimes extradite someone without an extradition treaty, but only if the requesting country in this case the US agrees to reciprocate, that is to send someone upon Cabo Verde's request and the US made it clear, oh, no, we're not ever doing that. So, you know, the legalities here, we're not recognized under any... No, it's the one way street. Do as we say, not as we do. So before I let you go, Dan, what's next in this case? Alex Saab is going to appeal. He will appeal, so we'll see. It'll go to the 11th Circuit, which again ruled in a good way, at least for Saab in the Saudi Arabian case. We'll see if they find a way to distinguish that case here. And then if it could go to the Supreme Court. But in the meantime, my guess is in the meantime, it will go forward on the merits of the case against Saab. And they'll go to trial on those issues. So the sad thing for Saab is in any case, what it means by all this is he's going to sit in jail for a lot longer, you know, and I think this is going to be a Julian Assange type case where they're just going to try the shit out of this guy, sorry, for my French. And they're going to make sure even if he wins ultimately, he's going to spend many years in prison. And that is a shame and a sad thing because I think he was doing something good for the Venezuelan people. And he's going to pay the price for that. Reminds me of this. I was told as a young lawyer, Dan, no good deed goes unpunished. I laugh. It's not funny. Sometimes you learn that. Alex Saab is learning that the hard way. Yeah. Yeah. He's, you know, he's stuck in a war in an economic, you know, and he has the key to free himself. And that is he could just make up a bunch of lies about Maduro and go on camera and badmouth Maduro. Believe me, they'd let him go, but he won't do it. He's a man of principle. He's Remind Loyal, which is really very, very impressive. Yeah. So I would love to have you come back. Yes, this case, you know, progresses as we go, you know, go further. It's been, this is the third episode we've done focused on Alex Saab's case. And it, I mean, it's a really, it's pretty horrifying, actually. Yeah. And he has a family. He has kids. Both of his parents died while he was in Cabo Verde. I mean, there's a human cost to this for him personally and his forced family. And it's very sad. It is very sad. Well, that's the message, isn't it? That's the message to anybody else who may be interested in helping or in particularly, you know, working around US imposed sanctions, sanctions warfare. It has to be called warfare. That's what it is. So we'll have you back as this progresses. It's always so great to have a conversation with you. I want to remind the audience you've been watching what the F is going on in Latin America and the Caribbean. We're a popular resistance broadcast, and we are live typically on Thursdays, 430 p.m. Pacific, 730 p.m. Eastern. You can find us on the Convo Couch, Code Pink Action, and popular resistance for YouTube channels. And if you miss us live on YouTube, be sure to catch us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. So okay, everyone, we'll see you next week. Happy New Year. Happy New Year. Peace.