By Fabiola Zerpa and Matthew Bristow/Bloomberg News
CARACAS
EnergiesNet.com 02 08 2022
A Venezuelan court upheld the sentences of the six U.S. oil executives known as the Citgo 6, who were jailed for lengthy terms on corruption charges.
The court rejected an appeal by Jose Pereira, a former CEO of Citgo Petroleum Corp, a Houston-based subsidiary of Venezuela’s state oil company, against his prison sentence of 13 years and 7 months, the Supreme Court said in a statement late Friday.
The court also upheld the sentences of eight years and 10 months in prison for Tomeu Vadell, Jorge Toledo, Gustavo Cardenas, Jose Zambrano and Alirio Zambrano. Families of the men had hoped that Venezuela’s court system, which is packed with government loyalists, would release them as a goodwill gesture to unfreeze relations with the government of U.S. President Joe Biden.
The executives were arrested in 2017 after being summoned to a meeting at the Caracas headquarters of state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela S.A., and were convicted in 2020.
bloomberg.com 02 05 2022
