Venezuela’s ex-spy chief extradited from Spain to US to face drug charges
Venezuela’s former intelligence chief has been extradited from Spain to the United States where he is wanted on drug trafficking charges, his lawyer and judicial sources said.
Gen Hugo Armando Carvajal, who served as intelligence chief under the former Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez, has long been sought by US Treasury officials who suspect him of providing support to drug trafficking by the now disarmed Farc guerrilla group in Colombia.
Prosecutors in New York allege he used his high office to coordinate the smuggling of approximately 5,600kg (12,345lb) of cocaine from Venezuela to Mexico in 2006 that was destined for the US.
Known by the nickname “El Pollo” – the Chicken – the 63-year-old is also suspected of potentially having incriminating evidence against the the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, Chavez’s successor and a major adversary of the US.
His lawyer, María Dolores de Argüelles, and judicial sources confirmed to AFP that Carvajal had left Spain bound for the United States.
The move comes after the European court of human rights last week rejected Carvajal’s appeal against his extradition, arguing it was not proven he faces a “real risk” of being sentenced to life imprisonment without chance of parole in the United States.
That prompted Spain’s national court, which is charged with extradition, to on Tuesday order Interpol to “immediately deliver” Carvajal to US authorities.
Carvajal has repeatedly denied links to drug traffickers or the Farc.
He was stripped of his rank by Maduro’s administration after coming out in support of the opposition leader Juan Guaidó as Venezuela’s acting president in February 2019.
Carvajal then left Venezuela and was first arrested in Spain in April 2019 but a court later that year ordered his release, arguing the US extradition request was “politically motivated”.
The court later reversed that decision, but Carvajal then went on the run.
When he was arrested again in Madrid in September 2021, police said he had remained in Spain the whole time, changing residences frequently and getting plastic surgery to avoid being caught.