Ex-Venezuelan intel chief extradited from Spain, to face drug charges in US
File photo.
Venezuela's former intelligence chief General Hugo Armando Carvajal was on Wednesday (July 19) extradited from Spain to the United States on drug trafficking charges. Speaking to the news agency AFP, General Carvajal's lawyer Maria Dolores de Arguelles confirmed that the former intelligence chief left Spain bound for the US. He is expected to make a court appearance on Thursday.
Carvajal, 63, had served as the intelligence chief under former Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. Carvajal has been long sought by US Treasury officials who suspect him of providing support to drug trafficking by the FARC guerrilla group in Colombia.
The allegations
The report said prosecutors in New York alleged that he used his office to coordinate the smuggling of approximately 5,600kgof cocaine from Venezuela to Mexico in 2006 that was destined for the US.
The extradition comes after the European Court of Human Rights last week rejected Carvajal's appeal, the AFP report on Wednesday said. The court argued it was not proven that the former intelligence chief aces a real riskof being sentenced to life imprisonment without chance of parole in the US.
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This prompted Spain's National Court, which has been charged with extradition, to order Interpol to immediately deliver Carvajal to American authorities.
Nicknamed 'El Pollo',Carvajal was stripped of his rank by President Nicolas Maduro's government after coming out in support of opposition leader Juan Guaido as the acting president in February 2019.
He then left Venezuela and was arrested in Spain two months later, but a court ordered his release arguing the US extradition request was politically motivated. This decision was later reversed and Carvajal then went on the run.
The 63-year-old was again arrested in Madrid in 2021. The police said he remained in Spain the whole time, changing residences frequently and getting plastic surgery done to avoid being caught.
He has repeatedly denied links to drug traffickers or the FARC.
(With inputs from agencies)
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