The extradition by the Cape Verdean authorities of Alex Saab in the United States caused a tsunami on social networks. Twitter suspended 1 accounts supporting the Lebanese-Colombian businessman.
The Alex Saab affair, a businessman of Lebanese origin and active in several South American countries, notably in Venezuela, fascinated African internet users. Those of Kenya and Nigeria in particular. Indeed, many African activists have defended Alex Saab on social networks and, for some, in the streets. The businessman, wanted by Interpol, was arrested in June 2020 while making a stopover in Cape Verde.
Despite an opposition from ECOWAS concerning the extradition of Alex Saab, Cape Verde still agreed to send the defendant, in mid-March, to the United States. The small African archipelago would have, according to the South American media, yielded too easily to American pressure.
The detention of the businessman in Cape Verde is contrary, according to specialists, to international law and the African Charter of Human Rights, while Alex Saab is accused of money laundering in Florida, in the USA.
Saab's extradition also posed a big legal problem for the Cape Verdean authorities. The businessman's lawyers argued in court that no international arrest warrant had been issued against him in Africa, claiming that the Cape Verdean government had detained him "to give it as a gift to Americans ”. They also raised an important point: no extradition treaty exists between the United States and Cape Verde, which has not put forward its sovereignty in this affair.
In addition, Saab's lawyers subsequently published a document from ECOWAS, showing that even the communication of the Interpol red notice did not reach the Cape Verde authorities until the day after his arrest.
Twitter censorship at the request of the Anglo-Saxons
Nonetheless, the Barlavento Court of Appeal in Cape Verde granted the US extradition request in January, and the Cape Verdean Supreme Court applied it on March 16, overstepping the process and deadlines, and establishing a world record for intercontinental extradition.
The reaction on social media has been overwhelming: In Nigeria and Kenya, where Tonto Dikeh, Pamilerin Adegoke and many other influencers and activists started the hashtag #FreeAlexSaab, the businessman has been supported by an entire continent.
But this spontaneous operation was not to the liking of the American media company BuzzFeed and the small British start-up Digital Africa Research Lab (DARL), which published a report on March 29 accusing all influencers and supporting accounts. Alex Saab using the hashtag #FreeAlexSaab on Twitter to be paid trolls.
It took just a few days for Twitter on April 8 to suspend 1 exclusively African accounts on its network, some of which had not even tweeted or retweeted with the hashtag in question.
According to BuzzFeed, the campaign was paid by influential people to promote Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and highlight the Alex Saab affair on social media.
After Facebook, which had deleted accounts managed from France and Russia for "disinformation in Africa" or the pages of a Tunisian company working for African states, it is Twitter's turn to respond favorably to American requests. and the British, specialists in censorship on social networks.