President Nicolas Maduro calls for “prison” for those who conspired to “rob” the country of Citgo, the Venezuelan refinery based in Houston, subjected to a forced auction on the basis of an unprecedented ruling by a Delaware court.
“We need prison for all those involved in this theft. There must be justice,” Maduro declared in his program ‘With Maduro +’, adding that the US government, in complicity with sectors of the Venezuelan opposition, is trying to steal the country of a state-owned company.
Parliament has also discussed the dossier in the last few hours.
The president of the assembly, Jorge Rodríguez, stated that what happened with Citgo “is a vulgar robbery by those who claim to be defenders of the economy, who have mounted a hoax on top of another hoax to take possession of an asset of the Bolivarian Republic” and handing it over to the USA. “For this reason,” he added, “we will throw them out in the July 28 elections because they are stateless and thieves.”
In a statement, the government had already declared that the judicial procedure is “clearly contrary to the law”, warning that it “will not recognize” the outcome and that it will “take countermeasures”.
The statements come as the auction, to pay $21.3 billion from Caracas’ expropriations, debts and defaults, has entered its final phase.
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