![[Img #74675]](https://thelatestnews.world/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/They-discover-a-new-class-of-X-ray-sources-in-the-150x150.jpg)
The former right-hand man of the deceased Hugo Chávez is accused by the US courts of drug and arms trafficking and narco-terrorism, for which he could spend the rest of his life in jail, judicial sources announced. He was extradited from Madrid and will appear before a US judge on Thursday.
First modification:
2 min
with AFP
Hugo “Pollo” Carvajal arrived in the United States on Wednesday to respond to justice” that accuses him of having “flooded” the country “with tons of potentially lethal drugs,” said Damian Williams, attorney for the southern district of Manhattan, where he will be tried. .
According to US justice, Carvajal was one of the leaders, along with other high-ranking Venezuelan soldiers, of the Los Soles cartel, at least since 1999.
In 2006, he would have coordinated with other members of the cartel the shipment of 5.6 tons of cocaine from Venezuela to the United States, but they were confiscated by the Mexican authorities.
The US justice system accuses him of narco-terrorism, conspiring to traffic drugs and possession of weapons, charges that could lead him to spend the rest of his life in prison if found guilty.
With the extradition of Carvajal, a long judicial battle and maneuvers by the ex-military to avoid being handed over to US justice, since he was arrested in Madrid, in 2019, come to an end.
The extradition of the Venezuelan was carried out the day after the Spanish National Court, a court in charge of extraditions, ordered his “immediate delivery” to the United States, after the final green light from the European Court of Human Rights ( ECHR), to which the “Chicken” resorted to avoid his extradition.
Makeover
Carvajal tried numerous resources and was even on the run for more than twenty months since the National Court initially approved his extradition in November 2019.
During this period of hiding, the retired general underwent cosmetic surgery, wore false mustaches and wigs, and changed his address every three months, according to the police, who arrested him again in the Spanish capital in September 2021.
After being a weighty figure of Chavismo, Carvajal was repudiated by the government of Nicolás Maduro after having publicly supported the opposition Juan Guaidó, when he proclaimed himself president of Venezuela in February 2019.
So, he went by boat to the Dominican Republic and then flew to Spain, where he was detained at the request of the United States.
The Venezuelan authorities accused him of treason, continued conspiracy, financing of terrorism and criminal association.
The head of Parliament, the powerful Chavista leader Jorge Rodríguez, asked the United States on Wednesday to hand him over.
Carvajal denies the charges, and in an open letter that he published on social networks in 2021, he stated: “The political pressure of the United States may bend the Spanish State and they end up violating the laws that are lacking to please the gringo political agenda.”
