MIAMI – An American oil executive imprisoned in Venezuela has been out of touch with his circle of relatives and lawyers for nearly a week and his circle of relatives fears he will suffer the new coronavirus.
José Pereira, a former President of Houston-based Citgo, was transferred on August 28 to an unknown hospital after complaining in an earlier phone call about a dry cough, his son told The Associated Press on Thursday.
Since then, his lawyers and family circle have been unable to download information about his whereabouts, John Pereira said.His cellmates, who worked under Pereira in Citgo, told his relatives that the guards got rid of Pereira’s clothes and medications from the Caracas criminal where the men were detained on Wednesday.
“We are desperate,” said Pereira, who asked the Venezuelan government to provide data on his father’s health.”We want to know what it is to him.”
Chief Prosecutor Tarek William Saab commented on Pereira when he was contacted through the AP on Thursday.
Pereira, 62, who has lived in the United States since 2012 and has been a legal permanent resident since 2015, was arrested in 2017 along with his five colleagues, all naturalized U.S. citizens, after being tricked into traveling to Caracas just before Thanksgiving for what they had done.They were told it would be an emergency assembly at the headquarters of the parent company of Citgo, the state oil giant Pdvsa.Instead, they were expelled from an assembly hall through masked security forces.
Lately they are being tried on corruption charges arising from a plan never executed to refinance some $4 billion of Citgo bonds by handing over a 50% stake in the company as collateral. Tuesday’s session, which Pereira planned to attend, cancelled for no reason.
Many say the so-called Citgo 6 is carried out through President Nicols Maduro as a currency of political exchange as relations between the United States and Venezuela have deteriorated.
Former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson recently traveled to Caracas to pressure Maduro for the release of the men, two of the six, Gustavo Cardenas and Jorge Toledo, were arrested in space.The other men who remain imprisoned in the infamous criminal Helicoide of Caracas are Tomeu Vadell and brothers Alirio and Jose Luis Zambrano.
On Monday, after Maduro gave pardons to dozens of his imprisoned and exiled opponents, Richardson reiterated his hope that men will soon be reunited with their families.
“The release of political prisoners through Maduro’s government is a positive step,” Richardson said on Twitter, adding that he hoped that his negotiations with a senior Maduro official would “yield positive results” for Citgo 6.
Richardson, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations during Clinton’s presidency, has opened diplomatic avenues for several hostile governments, adding Iran, Cuba, and North Korea, to secure the release of some 40 Americans.
Pereira said his father suffered from several chronic situations – diabetes, high blood pressure, disc dislocation – that his time in crime had worsened and would make him more vulnerable if exposed to coronavirus.
In June, Maduro’s government posted photos and videos of men in orange uniforms exercising and looking healthy.
“Given the limitations, our here has been good,” Pereira said in the video. “They treat us with respect for our human rights.”
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