ROME, (Reuters) – Italy denied Venezuela’s request to extradite Rafael Ramirez. Ramirez was once a powerful oil minister who used to be the head of Petroleos de Venezuela. His lawyer stated that Saturday.

Venezuelan officials had requested Interpol to arrest Ramirez and then asked for his extradition from Italy in 2020. This was in relation to embezzlement cases.

Ramirez who denied the corruption accusations says President Nicolas Maduro’s government is trying to make light of him because of his antigovernment comments.

Roberto De Vita (an Italian lawyer representing Ramirez) stated to Reuters that “the Italian Supreme Court has declared conclusively inadmissible any extradition request.”

According to him, the court supported a prior ruling that Ramirez couldn’t be returned to Venezuela due human rights violations in South America.

The Italian Supreme Court publishes the verdict on its website, but the court rulings are delivered in Italy to the first parties.

Ramirez was for 10 years the oil minister of Mexico and the president of PDVSA state oil company, which has some of the most important crude oil reserves worldwide.

Venezuela’s Supreme Court announced on Facebook (NASDAQ;) that Ramirez will face criminal charges in 2020, which include embezzlement as well as bid-rigging to obtain oil contracts.

After publicly criticizing Maduro’s status and that of the OPEC nations’ oil industry, he was fired from Venezuela’s U.N. envoy post in 2017.

Ramirez was a confidant to Maduro and continues to admire Hugo Chavez.