Key Points
The man who spent eight years insisting Venezuela had no political prisoners has just been appointed to defend Venezuelans’ human rights. In any other country, this would qualify as satire. In Caracas, it was Wednesday’s parliamentary business.
Musical Chairs in the Assembly
Tarek William Saab, 63, submitted his resignation as attorney general through a letter read aloud by National Assembly president Jorge Rodríguez. Minutes later, the ombudsman Alfredo Ruiz also resigned, citing personal and health reasons. Both had held their posts since 2017 and were reconfirmed until 2031 in October 2024.
What followed was swift and coordinated. Rodríguez proposed — and the Chavista-controlled Assembly approved — Saab as interim ombudsman and lawyer Larry Daniel Devoe Márquez as interim prosecutor. Devoe had been serving as executive secretary of the National Human Rights Council and is a close collaborator of acting president Delcy Rodríguez. Both were sworn in within the hour.
Under Venezuelan law, a nominations committee must now select permanent replacements within 30 days. Given the Assembly’s overwhelming Chavista majority, the outcome is unlikely to surprise anyone.
A Record That Follows Him
Saab was appointed attorney general in 2017 after the Constituent Assembly dismissed Luisa Ortega Díaz, who had broken with Maduro. He was sanctioned by the United States that same year for failing to protect protesters from security force abuses. Over the following eight years, his office prosecuted opposition leaders, issued arrest warrants against presidential candidate Edmundo González Urrutia, and oversaw a judicial system that human rights organizations have called one of the darkest chapters in Venezuela’s history.
Saab consistently denied the existence of political prisoners. In a recent Reuters interview, he said those detained were prosecuted for operating outside the constitution. He expressed hope that the amnesty law passed last week would produce a country “100 percent pacified.”
Rights Groups See No Reform
Human Rights Watch responded immediately. Juanita Goebertus, the organization’s Americas director, acknowledged that Saab’s departure from the prosecutor’s office was promising but called his appointment as ombudsman a slap in the face to victims. She argued that meaningful reform requires an independent prosecutor who stops persecuting dissidents and guarantees the release of all political prisoners.
The reshuffles are part of a broader reorganization under Delcy Rodríguez since she assumed the acting presidency after Maduro’s capture in January. She has replaced officials across defense, communications, and industry — including removing Maduro ally Alex Saab from his ministerial post. But the pattern so far suggests personnel rotation within the same political circle rather than institutional transformation.
In his resignation letter, Saab wrote that he served with “nobility and honor” during an era of “exceptional challenge.” For the thousands of Venezuelans his office helped put behind bars, the challenge was considerably less exceptional than enduring.