In a new judicial turn, they suspend delivery of former Venezuelan spy chief Hugo Carvajal to the United States.

In a new twist in the judicial saga of former Venezuelan intelligence officer Hugo “el Pollo” Carvajal in Spain, the court in charge of extraditions suspended his delivery to the United States due to a procedural error.

Just two days after the National High Court ordered his immediate delivery to the US authorities who are looking for him for alleged drug trafficking, the court itself stopped that possibility.

Faced with an appeal by Carvajal’s defense, the National High Court found a formal defect in a previous judicial order of the court itself, so that “has agreed to suspend the delivery to the United States“Of the retired general until said error is corrected, he said in a statement.

The court did not specify how long it could take to correct the error for the process to get back on track.

Ups and downs

It is a new swing in the long process of extradition of Carvajal, which began when he was detained in Spain in April 2019 at the request of the United States.

In September 2019, the National High Court denied the extradition alleging inconsistencies in the US request and even a “political motivation”, But barely two months later he declined and approved it.

But when the police went to look for him at his house to arrest him, they did not find him.

Head of the Venezuelan intelligence services under the presidency of the late Hugo Chávez (1999-2013), Carvajal spent almost two years on the run until he was arrested again last September in the Spanish capital.

To evade authorities, the 61-year-old retired general underwent cosmetic surgery, wore mustaches and fake wigs and changed addresses every three months, according to Spanish police.

On his social networks, he published several statements in which he denied the accusations against him and claimed that he had gone “underground” in protest of “irregularities”In his extradition process.

“I am guilty of having believed and participated in Chávez’s original project, not that it led to criminals occupying power“In Caracas, Hugo Carvajal affirmed in a web page put online last week, with which he seeks to defend his”truths”.

Possible life imprisonment in the US

A leading figure in Chavismo for many years, Carvajal left Venezuela after being repudiated by the illegitimate government of Nicolás Maduro for having publicly supported the opposition Juan Guaidó, when he proclaimed himself president of Venezuela in January 2019.

He went by sea to the Dominican Republic and from there he flew to Spain, where he was arrested in April 2019 at the request of the US justice.

This accuses him of having belonged with other senior Chavismo officials to the so-called Cartel of the Suns, which would have trafficked drugs with the former Colombian guerrilla of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

A New York court charged Carvajal in 2011 with coordinating the shipment of 5.6 tons of cocaine from Venezuela to Mexico in 2006, which later reached the United States. You could be sentenced to up to life imprisonment.

In Madrid, Carvajal is called to testify on October 27 by a judge of the National Court, as a witness for “to collaborate”With the Spanish justice in other cases related to Venezuela.

According to the Spanish press, Carvajal offered evidence that the radical left party Podemos, a partner of the Socialists in the Spanish coalition government, would have received money from Chavista governments.

A case for a similar complaint was filed in Spain in 2016 for lack of evidence.