MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Venezuelan FM speaks the worst about his Argentine colleague

Werthein was included as a person of interest in the investigation into Nahuel Gallo's arrest by Caracas on espionage charges

Venezuela's Foreign Minister Yván Gil told his Argentine colleague Gerardo Werthein on social media he had “no morals to talk about Venezuela” and insisted that the latter's true legacy lay “in the fortunes amassed in the shadow of any opportunist government and under the complicity of the darkest dictatorship that devastated Argentina.” Gil also insisted that Buenos Aires' “terrorist plans” had ”failed categorically, just as any attempt to impose their hypocrisy and arrogance on us will fail.

In Gil's view, ”Mr. Gerardo Werthein, current Chancellor of the grotesque political experiment represented by (President Javier) Milei, personifies a historical shame for the people“ of that South American nation. Gil also claimed that Werthein had ”no morals to talk about Venezuela and even less to question our Public Powers and our Attorney General.“

He also suggested his Argentine counterpart took ”some lessons in dignity, that which the Wertheins, in decades of usufructing Argentina, never had.“ Werthein's shady history ”does not begin or end with money laundering,“ Gil also pointed out. ”No, his real legacy is in the fortunes amassed in the shadow of any opportunistic government and under the complicity of the darkest dictatorship that devastated Argentina,“ he went on.

”That wealth he holds is impregnated with the blood of tens of thousands of innocent people, murdered and tortured during the most tragic years of Argentina's history,“ the Bolivarian official further stressed.

”The Wertheins are not only a surname: they are an emblem of looting, corruption, and human misery. Their impact on Argentine society places them as undisputed leaders of, indeed, a true financial and moral underworld, dragging along with them a government that has only been an expert in collecting international ridicule while sharpening its claws for new opportunities of plundering and laundering illicit capitals,” Gil also noted.

Werthein was included as a person of interest in the investigation opened by the Venezuelan Judiciary in the case of the Gendarmería Nacional (Border Guard) First Corporal Nahuel Gallo arrested in Caracas on espionage charges when he tried to enter the country to visit his romantic partner and the child they have in common. Argentina's Security Minister Patricia Bullrich was also linked to the investigation. Gallo's alleged links with members of the Venezuelan ultra-right wing who plan destabilizing terrorist acts are under probe, Caracas authorities also said.

According to the Chavista regime, Gallo was sent to extract the asylum seekers of the opposition Vente Venezuela party of disenfranchised leader María Corina Machado who remain in what used to be Argentina's Embassy now guarded by Brazil after the diplomatic breakup.

Venezuelan Attorney General Tarek William Saab ratified the principle of the Bolivarian Government for the defense of sovereignty and against imperialism. He also dubbed Werthein a “spokesman of the Argentine underworld” and “a man born in a 'golden cradle' and representative in foreign affairs of a government that is a laughing stock worldwide for its submission to the US and Israel.”

“You, Mr. Werthein will surely not face the Law soon, because the Argentine justice is co-opted by the Macrism that today circumstantially is on your side, but that will not be forever. When the time comes, the Argentine people will seek justice in the face of all the outrages and abuses of a pranato of which you are the international spokesman,” he underlined. “History will put everyone in their place, but you and your henchmen have already entered -through the back door- the garbage dump of the underworld.”

Also Monday, Caracas rejected Argentina's Judge Ariel Lijo's measure against Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, his Vice-President wife Rosario Murillo, and other high-ranking officials in Managua. Venezuela “categorically rejects the use of the principle of universal jurisdiction for political purposes, a maneuver that violates the fundamental principles of sovereignty and non-interference in the internal affairs of States enshrined in international law.”

On Monday, Lijo ordered the international arrest of Ortega and Murillo for their “alleged responsibility in human rights violations committed in the Central American country.” Lijo is President Javier Milei's pick for the Supreme Court vacancy left by Justice Juan Carlos Maqueda who last week reached the mandatory retirement age of 75. He still needs the Senate's nod.

On a hectic last working day of the year, President Nicolás Maduro's regime Monday released 138 political prisoners who had been held since the incidents following the controversial July 28 elections which the incumbent claims to have won, as does the opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia. As many as 59 inmates were released from Tocorón and 79 from the Tocuyito prisons, including 19 women.

The beneficiaries of the measure were requested to sign documents admitting that “their human rights were respected.” Otherwise, they would remain in detention, it was reported. The NGO Penal Forum speaks of 1,849 political prisoners nationwide but reckoned that such a figure needed updating after 956 releases in the last few days.