Venezuela will ask the Interpol for an arrest warrant against former prosecutor general Luisa Ortega, who fled her country due to a political persecution by the government, and traveled to Brazil from Colombia on Tuesday, announced president Nicolás Maduro.
Venezuela will apply to the Interpol for a red code for these people involved in serious crimes,”
Maduro told foreign correspondents, referring to Ortega and her husband, legislator Germán Ferrer.
You go with the Colombian oligarchy, with the Brazilian coup. Tell me who you walk with and I’ll tell you who you are,”
added Maduro addressing Ortega, who was ousted on August 5th by the Constituent Assembly that now governs Venezuela with absolute powers.
This body won’t be recognized by the United States, Colombia and several governments in the region that deem it as a step towards a dictatorship.
Ortega left Bogotá a day after the Colombian president, Juan Manuel Santos, offered her asylum. Her husband faces an arrest warrant for allegedly leading a network that extorted corrupt oil businessmen from the Attorney General’s Office.
It is uncertain whether Interpol will accept the catch request announced by Maduro. In its statutes, the international police body is “strictly forbidden from intervene in matters of political, military, religious or racial nature.”
Ortega tried to stop the Constituent Assembly with several judicial remedies that were dismissed. The Constituent Assembly dismissed her on retaliation.
Before she landed in Bogotá, the former prosecutor general participated by videoconference at a meeting of prosecutors held on Friday in Puebla, Mexico, where she accused Maduro of being involved in the global corruption scandal of Brazilian firm Odebrecht.
Maduro responded on Sunday by saying she had blocked several corruption investigations and warned companies linked to the oil sector that were under suspicion, in exchange for millions of dollars.