Argentine Security Minister Patricia Bullrich filed a formal complaint on Thursday against Oscar Laborde, a leftist former diplomat believed to hold ties with the Venezuelan socialist Maduro regime, for engaging in talks with the Venezuelan socialists over an Argentine gendarme arrested in Caracas.
Bullrich accused Laborde, who served as ambassador to Caracas during the administration of socialist former president and alleged wife-beater Alberto Fernández, of treason and of undermining the Argentine state by negotiating with the Maduro regime — without any due authorization from the nation’s government — for the release of Nahuel Gallo, an Argentine gendarme arrested by the Maduro regime, which accused him of “espionage” and charged him with “terrorism.”
Gallo, who reportedly traveled to Venezuela to visit his wife and infant child, was detained by Venezuelan security officials in early December and was formally charged with “terrorism” by the Maduro regime on Friday. According to Venezuelan Attorney General Tarek William Saab, Gallo was arrested for “attempting to illegally enter the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, hiding his true criminal plan under the guise of a sentimental visit.”
Saab further claimed that Gallo allegedly sought to carry out “destabilizing and terrorist actions” with the support of purported “international far-right groups.”
The Argentine government denied Gallo’s alleged involvement in any “terrorist” plot and accused the Maduro regime of abducting the gendarme, presenting copies of stamped invitation letters and other certified documents that the Argentine government claims can demonstrate that Gallo visited Venezuela with the explicit purpose of visiting his family.
Several Argentine outlets reported on Thursday that, according to the formal complaint filed by Argentina’s Security Ministry, Laborde is accused of acting “against the interests of the country to sustain the justification of the forced disappearance of an Argentine national, arrogating to himself diplomatic powers that can only be exercised by representatives of the Argentine Foreign Ministry.”
The complaint reportedly reads:
Laborde’s actions, far from contributing to resolving the situation, validated without any basis whatsoever the accusations of the Venezuelan regime and undermined national interests. These actions not only represent a disloyalty to the Argentine State, but also, by attempting to justify acts of forced disappearance, are framed in behaviors that contravene the principles of justice and human rights that our government defends.
The complaint also reportedly details that Laborde reached out to the gendarme’s family in Argentina to “deliver a letter” to Gallo with the alleged “collaboration” of the Maduro regime:
The former ambassador Oscar Alberto Laborde is denounced for having betrayed the interests of the Argentine Nation, in a case that is of an unusual institutional gravity in the international concert of countries, acting with the evident intention of exposing political arguments to damage the role of the Argentine government in the protection of the Gendarme whose forced disappearance is claimed.
Bullrich referred to the complaint against the leftist former ambassador through a social media post in which she stressed that Laborde stands accused of “betrayal of the homeland”:
“We denounce the former Argentine ambassador to Venezuela, Oscar Laborde, for treason. While Corporal Nahuel Gallo is still missing in Venezuela, this guy knelt before Maduro, lied and is on the side of the dictatorship,” the message reads.
“Under the Government of President Javier Milei, traitors do not pass. Truth and justice will confront them! And history will judge them, for being on the darkest side of history,” the message continues.
Prior to Thursday’s formal complaint, Bullrich criticized Laborde’s actions during a Monday evening interview and accused the leftist diplomat of having ties with the Maduro regime. Bullrich asserted that it is “shameful” Laborde represented Argentina as an ambassador in the past.
Bullrich and Argentine Foreign Minister Gerardo Werthein will reportedly meet with Nahuel Gallo’s family on Friday.
Argentina and Venezuela do not have diplomatic ties since late July after socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro abruptly cut ties with Argentina and several other countries that questioned the dictator’s fraudulent July 28 presidential election, which Maduro claims he “won.”
Since March, the Argentine embassy in Caracas has sheltered a group of six Venezuelan dissidents wanted by the ruling socialists. At press time, five out of the six dissidents remain inside the Argentine embassy. The dissidents have denounced that Venezuelan law enforcement officials have “sieged” the embassy, which has no power or running water, and its vicities are kept under a constant surveillance.
The building is presently under the diplomatic custody of Brazil, who took charge of the shutdown embassy as per the terms established by the 1954 Caracas Convention on diplomatic asylum.
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