Venezuela envoy’s rise ends with murder of senior

Dwight Sagaray's rise in the Venezuelan foreign service was almost as swift as his downfall.

Within days of being hired at the Foreign Ministry in July 2010, Sagaray was sent to Kenya. A short time later, he was promoted to the No. 2 post at the embassy in Nairobi. Then, after the head of the diplomatic mission left the country in May amid charges of sexual harassment, Sagaray, 35, suddenly became his country's top representative in Kenya.

But in mid-July, officials in Caracas sent a veteran diplomat, Olga Fonseca Giménez, to take over as chargé d'affaires in Nairobi. Twelve days later, she was found strangled to death. The Kenyan authorities quickly charged Sagaray with murder.

It seemed a jaw-dropping case of diplomatic foul play, which the police said was motivated by "jostling for positions in the embassy." But almost as stunning as the gruesome murder itself — Fonseca was bound hand and foot and a rope was tied around her neck — was the rapidity with which Venezuelan officials stripped Sagaray of the diplomatic immunity that could have protected him.

For reasons that have not been explained, Venezuelan officials cleared the way for the Kenyan police to arrest Sagaray within 24 hours of the discovery of the body on July 27. "Why did the government decide so quickly to take away diplomatic immunity?" said Yenibel Lugo, a lawyer representing Sagaray.

It is rare for a government to give up the immunity of one of its diplomats, according to experts in international law who were unable to point to a similar case. That has led to questions about what motivated the Venezuela to give Sagaray a high rank so quickly — and then cut him loose so fast. "They threw him to the wolves," said Hector Griffin, a retired Venezuelan diplomat who said he knew Fonseca and had been hired as a lawyer by Sagaray's family. It was he who gave the details of Sagaray's hiring and promotion.

... contd.

ALSO READ

Agent in America raises funds for Imran's party, sends over $7 lakh

LeJ, death squads loom over Baloch polls

Pak prosecutor handling 26/11 attack, Bhutto assassination cases shot dead

Veteran BBC sportscaster Stuart Hall admits 14 indecent assaults