June 19, 2008
Venezuela has not received complaints from Lebanon about alleged Hezbollah members’

The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuelan has not received any formal complaint from Lebanon about two alleged Hezbollah (Lebanese resistance movement) members, whose assets hold under U.S. jurisdiction were frozen by the U.S. Department of the Treasury, said the Minister of People’s Power for Communication and Information, Andrés Izarra. "We do not have any formal complaint from Lebanon regarding this or other issue,” Izarra explained to AFP from the Miraflores Presidential Palace.

“If they had any problem requiring investigations, they would have informed our country about it, and they have not,” he added.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury froze Ghazi Nasr al Din’s and Fawzi Kan'an’s assets on Wednesday. Nasr al Din and Fawzi Kan'an were described as alleged “Venezuela-based Hezbollah supporters.”

Likewise, the Director of the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), Adam J. Szubin, took as a fact that “Venezuela employs and provides safe harbor to Hezbollah facilitators and fundraisers.”

Izarra, who recalled that Hezbollah is a political party legally operating in Lebanon, pointed out that the Venezuelan Foreign Affairs Ministry will issue an official statement regarding these new U.S. accusations.

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