# The United States and Venezuela complete a prisoner exchange including Alex Saab

Date: 2023

## The fact

On 20 December 2023 Washington and Caracas completed a prisoner exchange in which the US released Alex Saab and Venezuela released imprisoned Americans and others. He did not write the US pardon-and-release instruments. Store complex.

## Context

Barbados October sat as parent weather. Neighbouring Machado ban is a child breach weeks later. He did not sit as DOJ.

Barbados 17 October is the parent political weather. Machado January 2024 is a child.

The President of Venezuela heads the national executive, commands FANB as commander-in-chief, appoints the cabinet, and can request enabling laws. He does not write an OFAC designation, an ICC Pre-Trial Chamber decision, or a Colombian migration statute. A CNE announcement is not an opposition acta and is not a Carter Center finding. Those three statuses stay on separate rows. An ICC investigation is not a conviction. An IMF figure is labelled as an estimate where BCV stopped publishing. Sanctions after 2017 and 2019 are an external causal factor; they do not erase the pre-2017 PDVSA-and-policy collapse.

## Evidence and sources

Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Venezuela carries the official instrument or communique. Reuters records the same dated act independently.

## Significance

The path is [humanitarian access](/drivers/humanitarian-access): a completed named prisoner exchange, remaining domestic political-prisoner stocks named.

## What is established and what is not

Established: 20 December 2023 swap, independently reported.

Not established: that all political prisoners were thereby released, or that he wrote the US release instruments.

What would change the picture: a contradictory original with a different date or name, a later repeal, a court that vacated the instrument, or a measured series that can be argued, with lag and alternatives, as a consequence of this instrument rather than of later institutions.

The date is the date of this instrument, not a licence to back-date every later harm or benefit.

The US owned Saab’s release. Barbados weather sat as parent.. A later repeal, court stay, or successor order would be a different Fact with a different date. That pair identifies The United States and Venezuela complete a prisoner exchange including Alex Saab, not a later speech about The United States and Venezuela complete a prisoner exchange including Alex Saab.

Co-authors and later implementers named in Context remain on the file. The United States and Venezuela complete a prisoner exchange including Alex Saab on 2023-12-20 is not a licence to treat every later Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Venezuela communique as this same act. If a later repeal, stay, or successor instrument exists, it needs its own date and its own row. This dossier refuses to average The United States and Venezuela complete a prisoner exchange including Alex Saab into a personality. The contribution described on this Person row is limited to He owned the Venezuelan releases. The US owned Saab’s release. Barbados weather sat as parent. That limit is the alternative to treating office-holding as authorship of every later series.

## People

- Nicolás Maduro: https://factrail.ai/people/nicolas-maduro

## Drivers

- Humanitarian Access: https://factrail.ai/drivers/humanitarian-access
- Democratic Resilience: https://factrail.ai/drivers/democratic-resilience

## Sources

- https://www.reuters.com/world/us-venezuela-prisoner-swap-alex-saab-2023-12-20/
- https://mppre.gob.ve/

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/facts/ve-swap-2023