Berlin gives double standards masterclass on Maduro kidnapping

A German government spokesman bizarrely managed to condemn Russia but not the US over the affair

Berlin has condemned ex-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev over his suggestion that Chancellor Friedrich Merz could end up kidnapped like Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro but failed to provide an opinion on the US action itself.  

Former Russian leader and deputy chair of the Security Council made the tongue-in-cheek comments on the US military action in Venezuela to TASS on Sunday, suggesting he could envisage a similar operation against Merz as well.  

“The kidnapping of the neo-Nazi Merz could be an excellent twist in this carnival of events,” Medvedev stated, adding that there’s a “grain of reality to this scenario” as well.  

The remarks were brought up during a press conference in Berlin on Monday, with German political journalist Pauline Jackels grilling government spokesman Sebastian Hille on the matter. Asked whether Berlin took Medvedev’s words at their face value, Hille responded affirmatively.  

“As you can imagine, we have of course taken note of these statements, and, as you can also probably imagine, the federal government condemns any form of such statements and threats in the strongest possible terms,” he stated.

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Jackels pressed the spokesman further, inquiring whether the government takes a “purely hypothetical threat” of kidnapping a foreign leader and “condemns it in the strongest terms,” but does not do so if such an incident actually happens. The spokesman, however, failed to provide any coherent answer. 

“I don’t know what you’re getting at, but I can gladly repeat what I just said,” Hille stated, insisting that it was time to wrap up the press conference altogether.

The US military captured Maduro and his wife in a raid on Saturday, bringing them to New York. The couple now faces several criminal charges, including drug trafficking. The Venezuelan president has denied all the charges, describing himself as a “prisoner of war.”  

Germany, like most European nations and the EU as a whole, provided a muted reaction to the US military action against Venezuela and the kidnapping of the country’s leader. Merz neither backed nor condemned the incident, stating only that “the legal assessment of the US intervention is complex and requires careful consideration.”