citizens against traveling to countries - like Venezuela - that have a pattern of wrongful detentions. The administration also pointed to an executive order from this summer that sought to impose new costs on countries that jail Americans without proper cause, as well a new warning indicator designed to caution U.S. “To all the families who are still suffering and separated from their loved ones who are wrongfully detained - know that we remain dedicated to securing their release,” Biden said in his statement. has so far tried unsuccessfully to secure the release of WNBA star Brittney Griner and another American, Paul Whelan, Venezuela has been holding the largest contingent of Americans suspected of being used as bargaining chips.Īt least four other Americans remain detained in Venezuela, including two former Green Berets involved in a slapdash attempt to oust Maduro in 2019, and two men who, like Khan, were detained for allegedly entering the country illegally from neighboring Colombia. While much of the focus is on Russia, where the U.S. The Biden administration has been under pressure to do more to bring home the roughly 60 Americans it believes are held hostage abroad or wrongfully detained by hostile foreign governments. accusations of drug trafficking at the highest levels of Maduro’s administration.īoth men were granted clemency by Biden before the release. They were convicted the following year of conspiring to smuggle cocaine into the U.S., a highly charged case that cast a hard look at U.S.
The men were arrested in Haiti in a Drug Enforcement Administration sting in 2015 and immediately taken to New York to face trial. The United States freed Franqui Flores and his cousin Efrain Campo, nephews of “First Combatant” Cilia Flores, as Maduro has called his wife. Marine corporal from Tennessee who was arrested in 2020 at a roadblock in Venezuela on what the State Department has called “specious” weapons charges, and Florida man, Osman Khan, who was arrested in January. Once there, they were hauled away by masked security agents who busted into a Caracas conference room.Īlso released was Matthew Heath, a former U.S. Those freed include five employees of Houston-based Citgo - Vadell, Jose Luis Zambrano, Alirio Zambrano, Jorge Toledo and Jose Pereira - who were lured to Venezuela right before Thanksgiving in 2017 to attend a meeting at the headquarters of the company’s parent, state-run-oil giant PDVSA. It praised the diplomacy that resulted in the freeing of the two “unjustly imprisoned” Venezuelans imprisoned in the United States and said it “hopes for the preservation of peace and harmony with all the nations of our region and the world.” Maduro’s government said in a statement that it was releasing the American citizens as a humanitarian gesture. “We celebrate that seven families will be whole once more.”
“Today, after years of being wrongfully detained in Venezuela, we are bringing home” the seven men, whom the president cited by name. “These individuals will soon be reunited with their families and back in the arms of their loved ones where they belong,” President Joe Biden said in a statement. and Venezuela after the men in the deal arrived from their respective locations in separate planes, the Biden administration said. The transfer took place Saturday in an unspecified country between the U.S. But the official, who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the administration, said it “remains extraordinarily rare that a choice like this is made.”
The administration in the last six months has struck similar deals with Russia and more recently the Taliban. The official said the deal required a “painful decision” but the administration’s willingness to make it showed its commitment to bringing home American citizens held abroad. and Venezuela had explored a range of options, but that it became clear that “one particular step” - the release of the two Maduro family members - was essential in getting a deal done. I’m just so happy.”Ī senior Biden administration official said the U.S. Holding back tears of joy on her 31st birthday, she said: “This is the best birthday present ever. “I can’t believe it,” Cristina Vadell, the daughter of Tomeu Vadell, one of the freed Americans, said when contacted by The Associated Press on Saturday.
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