US$314 Million Judgment Against Antigua & Barbuda’s Former Economic Envoy Alex Saab Revives Uncomfortable Questions for Browne Administration

A United States federal judge has given a US$314 million judgment against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and former Antigua and Barbuda Special Economic Envoy Álex Saab — among other defendants — after three American citizens alleged they were imprisoned and tortured while in Venezuelan custody. The ruling places Saab, whose relationship with the Gaston Browne administration attracted years of international scrutiny, back at the centre of a major legal controversy with direct implications for Antigua and Barbuda’s international reputation.

The Judgment

The ruling was entered by Judge Darrin P. Gayles in a US federal court, awarding US$314 million to Jerrel Kenemore, Jason Saad, and Edgar Marval — three American citizens who alleged they endured electric shocks, beatings, prolonged isolation, and other forms of physical and psychological torture during their imprisonment in Venezuela.

The three men were released in December 2023 as part of the prisoner exchange in which the Biden administration freed Alex Saab from US custody — a swap that itself generated international controversy given the severity of the money laundering charges Alex Saab had been facing in the United States.

Judge Gayles entered a default judgment after Maduro, Alex Saab, and the other defendants failed to respond to the lawsuit. While the decision is a civil judgment rather than a criminal conviction, and was entered by default because the defendants did not contest the allegations, it represents one of the largest damage awards ever granted by a US court to Americans detained in Venezuela.

The Antigua Connection

For Antigua and Barbuda, the ruling revives questions that the Browne administration has never fully answered about the due diligence conducted before Alex Saab was appointed to represent the country on the international stage. In 2014, Alex Saab was appointed by Gaston Browne as Antigua and Barbuda’s Special Economic Envoy to Venezuela and was issued an Antiguan diplomatic passport. The questions regarding the due diligence of the Gaston Browne administration are especially pertinent since the Ecuadorian government had launched an investigation into the alleged laundering of 130 million US dollars through Fondo Global de Construccion (Global Construction Fund) — a company associated with Alex Saab.

Note, the Ecuadorian government’s investigation began in 2013 an entire year before the Gaston Browne administration granted Alex Saab citizenship, appointed him Antigua and Barbuda’s special economic envoy to Venezuela and gave him a diplomatic passport.

The Gaston Browne administration said at the time that Alex Saab had been brought on to attract foreign investment, including a proposed housing manufacturing plant that never materialised. His appointment and diplomatic passport were revoked in 2019 after mounting international scrutiny — but by then, the damage to Antigua and Barbuda’s reputation in the eyes of United States and international authorities had already been done.

Alex Saab’s legal troubles have spanned money laundering allegations, international sanctions by the United States and the European Union, extradition proceedings that became an international diplomatic incident when he was detained in Cape Verde in 2020, and now a US$314 million judgment linked to allegations of torture.

No Finding Against Antigua — But the Questions Remain

The judgment makes no finding against the Government of Antigua and Barbuda. The country is not a party to the lawsuit and bears no direct legal liability under the ruling.

But legal liability and reputational consequence are not the same thing. Every time Alex Saab’s name appears in an international court filing, a sanctions designation, or a judgment of this magnitude, it appears alongside the words “former Antigua and Barbuda Special Economic Envoy” — a title the Browne administration conferred upon him and a diplomatic passport the Browne administration issued to him.

The central questions have never been answered: what due diligence was conducted before a Colombian-born businessman — with a history of money laundering investigations — was entrusted with Antiguan and Barbudan diplomatic credentials? Why did Gaston Browne approve the appointment? What investment did Alex Saab actually deliver for Antigua and Barbuda during his five years as an economic envoy? And what safeguards, if any, now exist to prevent the country’s diplomatic passport and envoy appointments from being extended to individuals who were previously, are currently, or subsequently become the subject of international sanctions, money laundering charges, and — as of this week — a US$314 million torture judgment?

A Pattern That Extends Beyond One Individual

The Alex Saab affair does not exist in isolation. It forms part of a broader pattern of concerns about the integrity of Antigua and Barbuda’s international credentials — concerns that now include the European Union’s formal demand to phase out the Citizenship by Investment Programme by June 2028, Gaston Browne’s stripping of CIP guardrails in the 2016 amendments to the CBI 2013 act, and the opposition’s ongoing demand for a parliamentary oversight committee with subpoena powers to scrutinise the CIP and related programmes.

Each of these issues shares a common thread: the question of who is being granted access to Antigua and Barbuda’s diplomatic credentials, under what standards, and with what accountability to the people in whose name those credentials are issued.

The US$314 million judgment against Alex Saab will not cost the Government of Antigua and Barbuda a single dollar. But the cost to the country’s reputational standing — measured in continued visa restrictions imposed by international partners, the scrutiny of its passport programme, and the erosion of the diplomatic trust that a small island state depends upon for its survival — continues to compound with every new headline that carries a former Antiguan appointed envoy’s name alongside allegations of money laundering, sanctions evasion, and now torture.