Jailed Citgo6 granted rare appeal hearing by Venezuela judge
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The Citgo6 oil execs
They are known as the Citgo6 . Six US oil executives have been detained in Venezuela over the last four years on corruption charges which many outside the South American country see as trumped up.
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Rare appeal hearing
They are now being granted a hearing before an appeals court. This is a rare decision by the judicial system in Venezuela which is stacked with officials loyal to president Nicolas Maduro.
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Detained in 2017
Tomeu Vadell, Jose Luis Zambrano, Alirio Zambrano, Jorge Toledo, Gustavo Cardenas and Jose Pereira were taken away by masked security agents while at a meeting in Caracas in 2017. They were convicted of embezzlement last year in a trial marred by delays and irregularities, and sentenced to between 8 and 13 years in prison.
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Bargaining chip
But many saw the arrests as Maduro's bargaining chip. Two weeks ago, AP reported that Venezuela’s government had quietly offered last year to release the imprisoned Americans in exchange for the US letting go a key financier of Maduro.
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Hearing next week
The executives are to appear before a three-judge panel in the same week as the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention takes up the case of one of them.