The Venezuelan government has asked the prosecutor’s office to issue an international arrest warrant for the former oil minister. Rafael Ramirezaccused chavism in committing a “mega-fraud” at the state oil company PDVSA and whose delivery Caracas has been demanding for years.
Authorities have already charged Ramirez, who currently resides in Italy, in December 2017 with causing $4.8 million in losses to the oil company over an alleged loan to Administradora Atlantic that will not appear on the books. PDVSA and that it was due to be signed in 2012 when he led the energy portfolio and chaired the Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) under the government of Hugo Chávez (1999–2013).
Venezuela’s vice president for economic affairs, Tarek El Aissami, said he had already handed over to prosecutors all evidence of “one of the most serious corruption schemes ever known in the oil industry.”
“Rafael Ramirez signs an act in which he accepts alleged irregular funding,” El Aissami said, referring to the test Chavismo sees as key to completing the jailing of someone who has unhesitatingly classified a “twisted and corrupt mind.”
The government considers the former minister “one of those directly responsible for the catastrophe” of the Venezuelan oil industry, a “traitor” to the message Chavismo allegedly promotes, according to the vice president, who defended the campaign against corruption.
Shortly before the appearance of El Aissami, Ramirez himself warned on Twitter that the leadership of Nicolás Maduro was preparing “another weed”, “another false positive” against him. “It will be interesting because I will explain to the whole country how the children of Cilia Flores (Maduro’s wife) appropriated PDVSA”, warned.
After leaving his post in 2013, Ramirez became an ambassador Venezuela at the UN government Nicholas Maduro, but he was replaced and later turned his back on the president.
In July 2020, the Venezuelan Supreme Court requested his extradition from Italy in order to prosecute him for allegedly committing the crimes of “fraudulent embezzlement, bid evasion and complicity (with intent to commit a crime)”. (According to Europapress and EFE)
Source: RPP
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