Former Venezuelan General Hugo Armando Carvajal, known as ‘The Chicken Carvajal’has claimed again his release to the National Court in Spainwhich denied it due to flight risk.
The ex-military’s defense has filed an appeal, to which Efe has had access, against the court’s decision, which refused to release him due to the “more than obvious risk of escape”, given that he had already been searched for and captured for almost two years and because the decision to deliver it to the United States is “final”, even if it is on hold.
Whoever was the head of military counterintelligence in the governments of Venezuelan presidents Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro, who has been in provisional prison for almost a year, charges harshly against the “prison practice” of the Court, whom he accuses of adopting an exceptional measure that ” has become normal.”
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And he cites the situation of Catalan pro-independence politicians who fled from Spain in 2017 and whom the courts of countries such as Belgium or Switzerland released while the delivery claims made by the Spanish Supreme Court were being processed.
The former general emphasizes that with the request for freedom what he is looking for is “manage to coordinate a better defense” and believes that the mere fact that the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) is analyzing the appeal he filed against extradition is reason enough to release him.
In addition to the risk of flight, the Court argued that the European court, aware of the decision not to extradite him until the conclusion of the procedure, decided to give priority to the matter.
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However, the former general’s defense emphasizes that the priority that the ECHR has decided to give “it cannot be used as an excuse to keep Mr. Carvajal in prison”.
Carvajal is claimed by the United States for crimes that in Spain are equivalent to belonging to a criminal organization or belonging to or collaborating with a terrorist organization and drug trafficking.
His delivery was agreed in 2019, but when the Court went to execute it, the defendant was no longer located until September 2021 when he was discovered, with the help of the US DEA, in a Madrid apartment. Currently the extradition remains on hold pending the decision of the ECHR.
