CNN
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The top U.S. State Department official for hostage and detainee affairs has quietly arrived Venezuela last month as efforts to bring wrongfully detained Americans there continued.
Roger Carstens, the president’s special envoy for hostage affairs, visited the Venezuelan capital Caracas just before Christmas, a US official and family members of the detainees told CNN.
According to the US official, the December 2022 trip – which has not been previously reported – focused on examining Americans still detained in Venezuela. Carstens was accompanied by US consular officials.
The United States no longer has official relations with the government of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro and has no diplomats in the country, meaning access to Americans there is extremely limited.
There are at least four Americans currently detained there: Luke Denman, Airan Berry, Eyvin Hernandez and Jerrel Kenemore. The latter two have been designated by the US State Department as being falsely detained.
Kenemore’s sister Jeana Tillery told CNN that Carstens was able to visit her brother and Hernandez in about 30 minutes. They brought him vitamins and the Bible at his request, and his family was able to send him tuna as a Christmas present.
“When he first saw the tuna, he asked for a minute of silence, he was so happy,” Tillery told CNN she can talk to her brother several times a week.
Hernandez’s brother Henry Martinez said that Carstens was able to deliver a number of gifts from the family such as vitamins, soap, honey and chocolate.
“They can tell him they’re working to free him and they haven’t forgotten about him,” Martinez said.
Martinez told CNN that he can talk to Hernandez about twice a week for about five to 10 minutes, and that he worries that his brother is starting to lose hope as he nears a year in captivity next year. March.
Carstens has repeatedly traveled to the Venezuelan capital to meet with Americans detained there – many of them the Biden administration guaranteed release last year.
In March 2022, Carstens brought two Americans from Venezuela – one of “Citgo 6,” Gustavo Cárdenas, as well as Cuban-American citizen Jorge Alberto Fernandez. However, another trip in June ended with no prisoners being released.
In early October, the city government. was able to free seven Americans — Jose Pereira, Jorge Toledo, Tomeu Vadell, Alirio Zambrano and Jose Luis Zambrano, Matthew Heath and Osman Khan — in a prisoner exchange with the Maduro government.
Carstens told CNN in exclusive interview at the end of November last year that the United States had “an ongoing conversation with the other side.”
“So while we have work to do, I still feel optimistic,” he said at the time.
Although the Biden administration has engaged with the Maduro government on the prisoner issue, it continues to officially recognize the Venezuelan opposition, which recently overthrow Juan Guaido as its leader. The US has eased some sanctions on the Maduro government, however, announced the easing of oil sanctions in November after the opposition and the Maduro government resumed stalled talks and reached an agreement on humanitarian relief.
