The civil servants’ collective Manos Limpias, complainants in several corruption cases in Spanish courts, has asked the United States Department of the Treasury, through its embassy in Spain, to apply to the former Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Spain, Mr. José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act I, approved on April 18, 2016.
The written filing explains that “the Global Magnitsky Law has as its objects to sanction those individuals and entities that engage in conduct contrary to human rights or that collaborate with the authors of such conduct, and thus in section two of that regulation its Chapter Two authorizes the President of the United States to sanction those responsible for extrajudicial executions, torture or other serious violations of internationally recognized human rights committed against persons in any foreign country who seek to expose illegal activities carried out by government officials; or to obtain, exercise, defend or promote the human rights and the internationally recognized freedoms, such as freedom of religion, expression, association and assembly, and the right to a fair trial and to democratic elections,” among other matters.
If this law were to be applied, the sanctions contemplated are of a very varied scope. For example, in the case of a foreign individual who is a person, as would be the case of the former president José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the measures contemplate ineligibility to receive a visa to enter the United States or to be admitted to the United States; or if a visa or other documentation has already been issued, the revocation of the visa or other documentation, in accordance with section 221(i) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1201(i)).
ZAPATERO’S ASSETS BLOCKADE
There are also other more serious measures, such as asset blocking. Specifically, the blockade, in accordance with the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.), of all transactions related to assets and interests in assets of a foreign person if such assets and interests in assets are located in the United States, are located within the United States or are under the possession or control of a United States person.
The argument of Manos Limpias is that “Mr. José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, former Prime Minister of Spain, and former member of the Council of State, since 2016 has been acting as an agent of Nicolás Maduro’s criminal regime, helping him to stay in power, initially as an intermediary in the Dominican Republic negotiation tables from 2016 to 2018 in which he would have threatened and pressured, together with the regime’s leaders Mr. Jorge and Mrs. Delcy Rodríguez, the negotiators of the Venezuelan opposition to sign an agreement, as publicly stated by the opposition politician Mr. Julio Borges, ‘They told us explicitly either you sign or you will know the worst side of us,’ ‘the pressure to sign was mandatory, the threat that if not we would suffer political persecution, … that we would be arrested, that happened in the Dominican Republic.’”
And they add that “subsequently Mr. José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero even has made statements in favor of the Nicolás Maduro regime so that international sanctions are lifted, such as when in December 2020 he urged the European Union to change its stance regarding the Bolivarian Republic. That coordination work with Nicolás Maduro is the only explanation for his dozens of trips to Venezuela (more than 35) in these years, and the details of which the friendly Venezuelan government led by the also socialist Pedro Sánchez Pérez-Castejón insists on concealing.”
The complaint also states that, “according to various media testimonies, Mr. José Luis Rodríguez-Zapatero has allegedly been a recipient, by the Bolivarian regime of Venezuela, of significant payments and gifts,” and the testimonies of the Colombian senator Piedad Córdoba, of the former head of Venezuela’s military intelligence services, Hugo Carvajal — currently imprisoned in the United States after being extradited in July 2023 — from Spain, of Rafael Ramírez Carreño, who was Minister of Oil and Mining of Venezuela, president of Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) from 2004 to 2013 and permanent representative of Venezuela before the United Nations, of the Venezuelan deputy Américo de Grazia, and of the former Vice-Minister of Energy in Venezuela, Javier Alvarado.”
From Manos Limpias they maintain that “José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero would be linked to a corruption scheme whose objective was to circumvent United States and European Union sanctions on Venezuela, consisting of the fraudulent importation of oil, using the Dominican Republic as a center of operations to hide and launder the profits.”
The petition is based on the assertion that “having determined by the United States that the Chavez regime is sustained by the Narco-terrorist organization Cartel de los Soles led by Nicolás Maduro, and having verified by multiple international organizations that this is a corrupt regime that tortures, murders and robs its citizens, violates human rights and prevents free elections, if Mr. José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero received payments or other arrangements from that regime for performing actions in its defense, the assets obtained would be illicit and would amount to money laundering, and would constitute the conduct typified in the Global Magnitsky Act, thereby becoming eligible for the sanctions therein established,” according to the filing presented to the United States.
Therefore, the president of Manos Limpias, Miguel Bernard, requests that “this document be considered received, and that it be agreed to apply to the Spanish citizen Mr. José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act.”
