Buenos Aires, February 25 (NA) — The Attorney General of Venezuela, Tarek William Saab, and the Human Rights Defender, Alfredo Ruiz, presented their resignations this Wednesday in respective letters sent to the National Assembly. The president of the Parliament, Jorge Rodríguez, announced that he received the notifications with the resignations of both officials, who had been ratified in their positions in October 2024 for a seven-year term, that is, until 2031, reported the newspaper El Nacional and accessed by the Argentine News Agency. Rodríguez indicated that there is currently no Vice Attorney General in the Public Ministry who can take the position on an interim basis while the process of selecting a new Attorney General by the National Assembly is activated. The president of the Parliament detailed that an 'acting' official will be chosen for both positions while the Parliament's Nomination Committee is activated. The former Attorney General, Zair Mundaray, was one of the first to mention a possible departure of the Chavist official from the Public Ministry. 'The cycle of horror, extortion, and crimes by Tarek William Saab ends,' wrote the lawyer in a post on X. Tarek William Saab, 63, was at the head of the Public Ministry since 2017, after the departure of Luisa Ortega Díaz. Following the capture of Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Flores on January 3, and the appointment of Delcy Rodríguez as the interim President of the Republic, some changes in official positions and measures such as the release of political prisoners, an amnesty law already approved by the National Assembly, and the closure of El Helicoide as a detention center were announced in Venezuela. While at the helm of the Public Ministry, Saab opened investigations against hundreds of opposition leaders, journalists, and activists, with emblematic cases such as opposition leaders María Corina Machado and Edmundo González, reported El Nacional. Additionally, international organizations, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, have documented arbitrary detentions, torture, and the use of the penal system as a tool of repression, with at least 18 deaths in custody recorded during his tenure, the newspaper reported.
