TRIAL JUDGE HOLDS THAT ALEX SAAB MORAN HAS NO DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITY FROM PROSECUTION IN MONEY LAUNDERING CASE

Alex Saab Moran, alleged laundryman for Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro

A United States District Judge in Miami has ruled that ALEX NAIN SAAB MORAN, the Colombian businessman who is the alleged money launderer to Venezuela's elite, including its president, cannot have a money laundering case pending against him dismissed, due to diplomatic immunity, which he has claimed after he was detained in Cabo Verde, and extradited to the United States. the decision came after an extensive evidentiary hearing and oral argument of the parties in open court.

The Court held as follows, in a 15-page Final Order on the Defendant's Motion to Dismiss the Indictment:

(1) Saab Moran was NOT a Diplomatic Agent of Venezuela.

(2) He has no diplomatic immunity under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relationships.

(3) He has no immunity under customary international law.

(4) The fact that the United States does not recognize the legitimacy of the current Maduro regime in Venezuela was a factor, as was the fact that expert testimony, given at the evidentiary hearing, showed that official Venezuelan records purporting to show his diplomatic appointment three years ago were deliberately altered and shown as evidence.

The defendant will appeal the decision.

The use of unqualified diplomatic passports, purchased in the developing world by transnational white collar criminals, narcotics traffickers, terrorist financiers, and other career criminals, has become a major issue in recent years, and the United Nations has refused to get involved in declaring that such passports, which violate both the letter and the spirit of the Viennas Convention, void ab initio. The legal authorities contained in this Order could provide useful guidance to courts that face this same issue in the future, not only in the United States, but abroad. Unaccredited "diplomats" with such identity documents can evade customs and immigration, smuggle in financial instruments, for money laundering, with impunity, and commit international fraud at will; this practice must be abolished, before it becomes even more widespread and out of control,

Since this matter is of great public importance, we are attaching the complete text of the fifteen-page decision below: