Former Chavista general will testify about alleged payments to the Spanish party Podemos

The Venezuelan Hugo Armando Carvajal Barrios, a former Chavista general arrested in Madrid and considered the most wanted fugitive in the United States for drug trafficking, will testify again before the Justice of Spain on October 27, as a witness, after providing documentation on alleged payments from Venezuela that would implicate ex-leaders of the Spanish left-wing formation Podemos.

Legal sources reported the decision taken by the magistrate investigating the case, Manuel García Castellón, which coincides with the decision of the Spanish Ministry of the Interior to reject the appeal presented by Carvajal against the denial of his asylum request, which could accelerate his extradition to the United States.

The former Chavista general, known by the nickname of “the chicken”, will return next week to the Spanish National Court, where he already declared at his own request a few weeks ago on matters that he said he knew after occupying the position of head of Venezuelan Intelligence for years .

During this time Carvajal has been providing documentation to the judge on alleged irregularities in payments made by the Venezuelan oil company PDVSA, some of them, allegedly, to former leaders of Podemos such as Juan Carlos Monedero.

After delivering the documents that supposedly accredit the information he provided in his first statement, the former general will be questioned again by the magistrate of the National Court.

These revelations, according to the sources, could lead to the reopening of the case opened in 2016 on the alleged illegal financing of Podemos, a partner of the Socialist Party in the Spanish Government, with funds from Iran and Venezuela.

The case was archived at the request of the Prosecutor’s Office when it was understood that the complaint was based on press clippings about an alleged police report, to which the Spanish Supreme Court did not give credit.

Carvajal, head of the Military Counterintelligence Directorate of Venezuela for eight years, during the governments of Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro, was arrested in Madrid in September after almost two years in an unknown location and is currently in prison in Spain.