A judge of the Court of the Southern District of New York, United States, denied the request to dismiss the charges for drug trafficking against the Venezuelan Major General Clíver Alcalá, detained two years ago.
This Tuesday, the hearing of oral arguments of the case against the officer, collaborator of the late former president Hugo Chávez Frías, was held. Judge Alvin Hellerstein attended the presentations of the prosecution and defense of the military.
Joshua Goodman, correspondent for Latin America of the news agency Associated Press, reported Tuesday afternoon that the US prosecutor’s office “clears an obstacle” to achieve the conviction of Alcalá for drug trafficking. According to Goodman, Judge Hellerstein flatly denied the motion to dismiss attempted by the Venezuelan general’s attorneys.
The journalist quoted the judge’s words at the hearing: “sovereign immunity does not protect a criminal state or corrupt officials. We are dealing with criminal conduct at the highest levels,” Goodman wrote on Twitter.
The file where Alcalá is accused for narco-terrorist conspiracy it also mentions Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro; Diosdado Cabello, first vice president of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela; Hugo “El Pollo” Carvajal, former director of the military intelligence services; as well as the guerrilla leaders known as aliases “Iván Márquez” and “Jesús Santrich”.
The case accuses those named of, in addition, conspiring to import cocaine into the United States and to use or transport weapons for drug trafficking.
The Los Soles cartel is also mentioned and Maduro is blamed for collaborating with the FARC guerrilla “for more than two decades” to, according to the file, “enrich themselves through drug trafficking and use cocaine as a weapon against the United States”.
thick file
Clíver Alcalá, 60, was trained at the Military Academy of Venezuela. He actively participated in the coup led by Chávez in 1992 against the then social democratic president Carlos Andrés Pérez.
Between 2008 and 2013, Alcalá led the armed garrisons of Valencia and Maracay, cities in central-western Venezuela. Later, he served as general commander of a military region in the east of the South American country.
The United States Department of Justice had designated him in 2011 as a drug trafficker on a list of four Venezuelan officials. As a retired military officer, he publicly criticized Maduro’s policies.
A report of AP He detailed that Alcalá coordinated a military plan since 2019 that would seek to overthrow Maduro from the Colombian border with Venezuela.
In March 2020, the US justice included him on a list of 15 high-ranking Venezuelan political and military officials and guerrilla leaders accused of four crimes.
Alcala surrendered to the authorities in Colombia and agreed to collaborate with prosecutors and the US drug enforcement agency.
US spokesmen had offered a $10 million reward for information leading to his capture.
That group is accused of participating in a drug-terrorist conspiracy; conspiracy to import cocaine into the United States; use and transportation of weapons and destruction devices for narco-terrorism; and conspiracy to use those weapons for the same purposes.
Penalties for the crimes described carry between 10 and 30 years in prison for each offense up to a maximum of life in prison, officials said.
Maduro, for his part, dismisses the accusations against him in the United States and constantly denounces that Washington is trying to overthrow him at any cost.
Since January 2019, the White House has not recognized Maduro as president of Venezuela, but opposition leader Juan Guaidó. A high-level commission from the government of Joe Biden met with the socialist president in Caracas a week ago to deal with political, energy and judicial matters, however.
Alcalá’s defenders have insisted in the trial that the Venezuelan major general was carrying out orders from Chávez and “El Pollo” Carvajal as part of a State policy of support for the Colombian FARC guerrilla.
The non-governmental organization Transparency Venezuela has detailed that Alcalá’s defense argues that he has not profited from drug trafficking.
Connect with the Voice of America! Subscribe to our channel Youtube and turn on notifications, or follow us on social media: Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
