Alex Trelinski
A FORMER Venezuelan military intelligence chief was extradited on Wednesday from Spain to the United States, where he is wanted on drug trafficking charges.
His departure followed Tuesday’s National Court ruling to kick out Hugo Carvajal after the European Court of Human Rights last week denied Carvajal’s request to avoid extradition that had first been authorised by Spanish authorities in 2021.
He flew out of Spain and is expected to land in New York later on Wednesday, according to his US lawyer, Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma.
Hugo Carvajal was head of Venezuela’s military intelligence during the presidency of the late Hugo Chavez.
A 2011 New York court indictment accuses him of working with Colombian guerrillas to import 5.6 million tons of cocaine to the United States.
He is also accused of providing ‘heavily-armed security to protect these drug shipments’ on the way to the US.
If convicted, he could face between ten years behind bars to life imprisonment.
Political changes forced him to flee Venezuela in early 2019 and he ended up in Spain with the National Court backing a US extradition order in September that year.
Carvajal went on the run and was arrested in a Madrid flat in September 2021 by the Policia Nacional.
They said at the time in a statement: “He lived totally enclosed, never going outside or getting close to the window, always protected by people he trusted.”
He then resorted to using European courts to see if he could get the extradition order overturned.
READ MORE:
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