Revolutionary since his youth, committed Chavista militant, poet, Buddhist, founder of the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela, governor, Ombudsman, promoter of rock concerts, the attorney general of Venezuela, Tarek William Saab, is one of the most controversial actions of the Chavista leadership that has exercised political hegemony in Venezuela for the last 25 years.
A lawyer, with specializations in criminal law and human rights, Saab was appointed attorney general in 2017 by the defunct National Constituent Assembly, a forum that appropriated the functions of the parliament elected in 2015, dominated by the Venezuelan opposition, inoperative as of that year. in the midst of massive anti-Chavista protests throughout the country.
Since then, Saab has had to face the battery of accusations made against the Venezuelan State for the excesses committed against opposition activists and the alleged crimes against humanity that occurred during the Government of Nicolás Maduro, formulated in various international forums, especially in the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and in the International Criminal Court.
Saab began to become known, above all, for his outstanding participation as an activist in defense of the victims of the Caracazo, on February 27, 1989, a time during which widespread popular riots occurred due to some economic backwardness, which the democratic Government of that time faced with clumsiness and a very high number of deaths.
Since then, Saab became a frequent visitor to Caracas newsrooms, affable and polite, a regular source for many journalists, working to broker unsolved stories and failures in police work.
Born in El Tigre, Anzoátegui State, in the east of the country, 62 years old, Saab is the son of a Lebanese immigrant couple. He is divorced and has children. In the eighties he was a follower of Douglas Bravo, a famous ex-guerrilla, then retired, and he was active in Breaking offa radical left organization that disbelieved in the electoral narrative of democracy.
The transition to power and the permanent public overexposure with the arrival of Chavismo, starting in 1999, produced some changes in this political leader, once thin and with straight hair, cordial and folksy, understanding of the exercise of journalism.
A devoted Chavista militant since the genesis of the movement, in the nineties, the continuous disagreements with the press and the constant conflicts with the opposition turned him into a distrustful, irritable character, sensitive to criticism. Particularly, from his years as governor of the Anzoátegui state (2004-2012)
Saab's appearance began to change: a frequent visitor to gyms, already divorced, he wore informal outfits as governor and was a determined promoter of rock concerts in the city of Puerto la Cruz, a traditional tourist destination in the east of the country. With several new tattoos, he liked to offer a youthful, approachable image, oriented to the revolutionary story.
Tarek William Saab became a delicate, explosive character, difficult to interview. Sometimes haughty. The controlling work of the press got on his nerves. He could never trust the opposition's intentions again. He took his government's questions as personal. He reacted indignantly to any approach that questioned his performance as a human rights activist.
It especially offended him that his adversaries said about him what they also say about other famous Chavistas, such as José Vicente Rangel or Jorge Rodríguez: that once they rose to power, by inhibiting the right to political alternation through actions, they have ended up committing excesses similar, or worse, to those denounced in the democratic framework of the past.
Frequently questioned for alignment with the Government of Nicolás Maduro, defended tooth and nail on international stages, Saab is not, precisely, the prosecutor of a conventional democratic government, but that of a revolutionary state. A state that no one has decreed and is not in the Constitution, but the only reality to which the ruling party, as a political body in the national state, responds.
In the midst of the political crisis of 2017, one of his sons, Yibram, He expressed solidarity with the opposition protests of that time and the students killed in clashes with the Bolivarian police.a, publicly questioning the father's positions. He said he made this statement inspired “by the principles and values” that he would have instilled in him. Saab, the prosecutor, asked for respect for the opinions of his son, which were used mercilessly on social networks by his opponents.
“I received a kind of transnational cartel of crime, of organized crime, totally structured to commit crimes,” he himself stated from the Public Ministry, his office, when commenting on his frequent anti-corruption operations and harshly criticizing his predecessor, Luisa Ortega Díaz, in one of his reports to parliament.
Sanctioned in several countries for conspiring to undermine democracy and his lack of independence to investigate the excesses of the executive in matters of human rights, Tarek William Saab is the author of 13 books of poetry, a star of the State's publishing funds, and a frequent presence in official cultural meetings.
Under his management, a particularly aggressive and unprecedented policy for animal protection has been advanced, with legal instruments that contemplate severe penalties for offenders; and he has assertively pursued popular demands or obvious injustices that go viral on social networks to establish some idea of timely justice.
“The International Criminal Court is coming – responding in origin and essence to political pressures from the centers of world power, to protect, without any legal reason, the independent work of the Venezuelan justice in vindication of human dignity,” he said in one of his recent pronouncements.
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