Falana: Cape Verde must respect ECOWAS ruling on detained Venezuelan envoy
Femi Falana, human rights lawyer, says Cape Verde must obey a ruling by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) court stopping the extradition of Alex Saab, Venezuelan envoy.
Saab was on his way to Iran when he was arrested after his private jet made a stop over in Cape Verde. He has been in prison in Cape Verde since June 2020.
He was recently released into house arrest after a ruling by the regional court. However, the West African country did not stop in its move to extradite Saab to the US, flouting another ruling of the court.
The envoy is caught up in a feud between Venezuela, his country, and the US.
When the case was heard on Friday at the regional court in Abuja, Falana said Saab has diplomatic immunity because he was on a mission to Iran for his country when he was arrested.
On his part, Henrique Borges, a representative of Cape Verde, said his country is not bound by the ruling because it has not signed additional protocol of the ECOWAS.
Borges argued that there is no evidence that Saab has a diplomatic status, despite his appointment to the African Union (AU) by Venezuela.
In a statement after Friday’s proceedings, Falana said if only nine members of ECOWAS sign the additional protocol, it is binding on the rest and in this case, 14 out of 15 countries.
“Furthermore, the African Union has accepted his appointment as and therefore his immunity and inviolability are absolute and cannot be challenged by Cape Verde,” the lawyer said.
“Cape Verde has to comply with the ECOWAS Ruling in accordance with the Revised Treaty (Article 15) besides the Additional Protocols.
“Under the provisions of the Additional Protocol 2005, if 9 States Members sign it, it becomes binding for all the States Members of ECOWAS. In this case, 14 out of 15 member states signed with the only one not signing was Cape Verde and that only because its Prime Minister at the time had to return to CV to deal with an emergency.
“Cape Verde has not at any time since expressed any discomfort with the protocols, at the material time fully participated in the discussions to agree the protocols and, importantly has one of its jurists appointed as a member of the ECOWAS Panel of Judges, its current Chief Justice is a member of the Committee of Chief Justices of the ECOWAS Court and a current serving member of the Cape Verde Supreme Court was previously a member of the ECOWAS Court.
“Once again, by its conduct Cape Verde can be seen to have accepted the jurisdiction of the ECOWAS Court.”
No, no they do not. They are a sovereign country, do not recognize the Maduro government, and have never given up the rights afforded by the United Nations dealing with fighting international crime. Just because a lot of ECOWAS members have likely taken Venezuelan gold for themselves to get to the point of attempting to tell a member state what they can and can not do should someone enter their country under false pretenses (personal passport not diplomatic passport) and even STILL today declaring he was on a diplomatic mission. The actions of ECOWAS, to me, have the stench of Venezuelan bribery gold and ECOWAS corruption.