Caracas, (EFE).- Venezuela’s Attorney General, Tarek William Saab, and the Ombudsman, Alfredo Ruiz Angulo, submitted their resignations on Wednesday to the National Assembly (AN, Parliament), controlled by the ruling United Socialist Party (PSUV). Subsequently, the AN appointed Saab as the interim Ombudsman.
According to a letter sent to the legislature, Ruiz Angulo’s resignation was attributed to personal, family, and health reasons. Saab’s resignation as Attorney General was announced by Parliament President Jorge Rodríguez, who did not specify the reasons for Saab’s decision despite Saab having sent a letter to the AN’s board of directors.
Rodríguez announced during a session broadcast on the state channel ANTV that he had received «separate letters» with the resignations of both officials. The two of them had been ratified in their positions in October 2024 for a seven-year term, until 2031.
Following Ruiz Angulo’s resignation, the AN President proposed Saab as the acting Ombudsman. «For the position of acting Ombudsman, we want to designate, propose, a man who has also been an expert in human rights his entire life,» Rodríguez stated before naming Saab in the session.
Rodríguez also mentioned that there is currently no Vice Attorney General in the Public Ministry (MP, Prosecutor’s Office) who can temporarily assume the role after Saab’s resignation while the AN activates the process for selecting a new Attorney General. Therefore, he indicated that an acting official would be chosen for both positions while the Parliament’s Postulations Committee is activated.
The resignations occur amid the process of an amnesty for political prisoners dating from 1999 to the present. On Friday, the now-former Attorney General considered that the Amnesty Law approved by Parliament closes «an important historical cycle» in Venezuela.
«I would say that the approval of the Amnesty Law closes an important historical cycle, which is that of healing wounds, obviously resulting from disputes and conflicts, beyond what the Law itself narrates,» the official affirmed then, according to a press release published by the Attorney General’s Office.
Saab, who has also served as a governor supported by the Chavista movement, arrived at the Attorney General’s Office in 2017 by designation of the plenipotentiary National Constituent Assembly, a forum composed exclusively of supporters of former President Nicolás Maduro’s government. The Chamber also ratified Alfredo Ruiz as Ombudsman at that time, a position Saab had held until 2017. EFE
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