Maduro sent letter to Iran’s leader accrediting US fugitive

MIAMI — A Colombian businessman was carrying a letter from Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro accrediting him to Iran’s supreme leader when he was arrested on a U.S. warrant last year, according to a new court filing in a politically charged corruption case ratcheting up tensions with the South American nation. “The collective emotion of Venezuela when the vessels carrying the Iranian flag arrived in our jurisdictional waters is indicative of a victory in the relations between sovereign states, never subjected to any empire.” The Trump administration in 2019 recognized opposition leader Juan Guaidó as Venezuela’s rightful leader, closed the U.S. Embassy in Caracas and imposed stiff oil sanctions on Maduro’s socialist government. “The irregular diplomatic relations between the United States and Venezuela do not permit the Court to ignore the Vienna Convention,” Saab’s attorneys said in the filing. ”Whatever its opinion of Mr. Maduro, the United States continues to recognize Venezuela as a sovereign member of the community of nations, and the law of nations requires it to respect that state’s sovereign rights, including to dispatch diplomatic emissaries to any other country in the world.” Federal prosecutors in Miami indicted Saab in 2019 on money laundering charges connected to an alleged bribery scheme that pocketed more than $350 million from a low-income housing project for the Venezuelan government that was never built.