The Spanish national court, in charge of extradition matters, has issued a decision that could have a wide impact on the Latin American geopolitical landscape.
By ordering Interpol on Tuesday to “immediately deliver” Hugo Carvajal to US authorities, Spanish judges may have lit the fuse that can set left-wing regimes on fire across Latin America.
“El Pollo” (the Chicken} Carvajal was stripped of his rank as a general in Venezuela’s counterintelligence by Maduro’s administration after he made the failed political gamble of backing US-backed opposition leader Juan Guaidó as Venezuela’s interim president in February 2019.
Carvajal was eventually arrested in Madrid in September 2021, on an Interpol search warrant for drug trafficking.
Reuters reported:
“Former Venezuelan military intelligence chief Hugo Carvajal, wanted by the United States for drug trafficking, has left Spain under a High Court extradition order, his lawyer told Reuters on Wednesday. and a judicial source.
Carvajal is expected to arrive in the United States later today and could make a first court appearance on Thursday morning, his attorney, Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma, said.
The Spanish court ordered Carvajal’s immediate extradition after the European Court of Human Rights rejected his latest attempt to avoid being sent to the United States.
Carvajal has been Chavez’s eyes and ears in the Venezuelan military for more than a decade, and he knows many secrets about the continental socialist movement in Latin America.
“In 2020, the United States charged Carvajal with drug trafficking, along with more than a dozen other top Venezuelan officials, including President Nicolas Maduro. Carvajal denied supporting cocaine trafficking to the United States.
The European Court of Human Rights ended up rejecting his appeal against extradition to the United States, arguing that it had not been proven that he ran a “real risk” of being “sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole”.
The Guardian reported:
“General Hugo Armando Carvajal, who served as intelligence chief under former Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez, has long been wanted by US Treasury officials who suspect him of supporting drug trafficking by the now disarmed Farc guerrilla group in Colombia.
New York prosecutors allege he used his high office to coordinate the smuggling of approximately 5,600 kg (12,345 lb) of cocaine from Venezuela to Mexico in 2006 that was destined for the United States.
Known by the nickname “El Pollo” – the Chicken -, 63 years old is also suspected of potentially having incriminating evidence against Venezuelan President, Nicolás MaduroChavez’s successor and a major opponent of the United States.
But “El Pollo” hides much more than the strong man of Venezuela. A whole network of people in power indebted to the Bolivarian Socialists exists in the region.
Tupi Report on the telegraph:
“(T)he European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ‘is convinced’ that he will be tried in ‘a judicial system that respects the rule of law and the principles of a fair trial in which he will have every opportunity to organize his defense with a lawyer”.
The veteran spy hopes to reduce potential jail time by sharing his many secrets about the scheme. This may cause conflagration among some of the most revered socialist Latin leaders.
“The former head of the Venezuelan secret service, General Hugo Armando Carvajal (…) sent a seven-page letter to the Spanish judge Manuel García-Castellón in which it recounts the details of a fundraising scheme for left-wing parties in Latin America and Europe by the governments of Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro.
(…) Carvajal cites as “concrete” examples of beneficiaries of the financing plan: (Brazilian) President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva; Néstor Kirchner in Argentina; Evo Morales in Bolivia; Fernando Lugo in Paraguay; Ollanta Humala in Peru; Zelaya in Honduras; Gustavo Petro in Colombia; the Five Star Movement in Italy; and the Podemos party in Spain.
And it’s not just about well-informed “hearsay”: he claims to have evidence of the existence of this fundraising scheme for left-wing parties by the Venezuelan government.
“I have informants who have witnessed the various stages of this network. I asked my lawyers to contact them while I was in prison to ask if they would agree to testify to my testimony, and some said yes to agree to testify before a judge.
