Former Chavista intelligence chief Hugo “El Pollo” Carvajal testified in Spain on narco-terrorism and promised to provide documents

The former chavist general Hugo Armando Carvajal, nickname “The chicken”, promised on Monday to provide documentation for corroborate his statements after testifying as a witness on matters he claims to know as a former Venezuelan intelligence chief that would interest Spain.

Before the National Court of Spain, Carvajal would have made an “interesting” story, according to his lawyer, Dolores de Argüelles, who declined to give details because the cause under secrecy.

According to legal sources consulted by Efe, the former general would have undertook to provide the court, at his own request, with documents on the matters dealt with during his appearance.

Carvajal declared in preliminary proceedings opened by the National Court during its first arrested in Spain after entering with a false passport.

Next invited to testify voluntarily on issues of international terrorism What AND and the FARC and expressed concern for the relations of the The Venezuelan regime of Nicolás Maduro and the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah.

However, on this occasion, he finally decided not to testify, alleging that he had changed lawyers and that his new lawyer needed to find out why the United States was seeking his extradition before deciding whether to make a new statement.

Legal sources then pointed out Efe that the declaration did not take place because the former Chavista general himself has given up on his original intention to provide relevant information on Venezuela.

Carvajal pursues strategy to avoid being extradited to the United States, a delivery that the national court has paralyzed pending the resolution of your asylum application.

The Spanish Interior Ministry denied it in 2019, but that at that time he could not be informed because he did not know where he was, so last week he was informed of the decision of the Madrid prison which he entered after his arrest two weeks ago, almost two years after receiving the leak.

This means, as his lawyer explained to journalists, that there is an appeal to the Interior and if he denies it again, he can appeal through contentious-administrative means, which, according to the law on asylum, paralyzes extradition.

His lawyer stressed that his client feared that he would not get a fair trial if he was extradited.But he trusts the Spanish justice system and that is why he did not leave this country when he fled.

However, in a setback for defense, the Supreme Court of Spain on Monday rejected the suspension of the extradition of the former official.

Supreme Court rejected Carvajal’s claim considering that “there is nothing” in its brief which allows a conclusion to be drawn on the circumstances of particular urgency or new arguments alleged in relation to those raised in a request for protective suspension formulated in 2020, which had already been rejected in May of the same year.

Carvajal is claimed by the United States for crimes of drug trafficking, money laundering and collaboration with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) to bring drugs into the United States.

When he first appeared for his extradition, he said that the claim is based on false accusations and responds to political motivations due to the information available to him since the time of Hugo Chávez.

The Audiencia Nacional agreed to his extradition in 2019, considering that behavior linked to drug trafficking for twenty years had been proven., as well as with the sale of weapons to the FARC in exchange for drugs and armed protection against shipments of cocaine.

Carvajal, what was Head of the Venezuelan military counterintelligence in the governments of Chávez and Maduro, entered the same prison he was in between April and September 2019, when he was captured in Spain when requested by the United States, but later when his extradition was approved he was declared wanted and captured because he was not at home.

(With information from EFE)

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