Maduro said he would ask Spain to extradite Leopoldo López

The dictator of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro said on Wednesday that he would ask the Spanish government for the extradition of Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo López.

Maduro assured to have instructed the Minister of Foreign Affairs of his regime, Jorge Arreaza, to request this procedure because “the Spanish government cannot be complicit in terrorism and violence against the Venezuelan people”, declared the dictator.

“I asked Arreaza to contact Spain’s new Foreign Minister, José Manuel Albares, and show him all the evidence against Leopoldo López, the main instigator of a coup, terrorist violence and criminals. “

“We are going to ask for extradition and we are going to establish ourselves so that the Spanish government respects international law”, he said in a transmission over the Venezuelan television network (VTV).“It is one thing to have political, ideological and diplomatic differences, and another for them to protect them from Madrid, to be carried out and directly financed, acts of violence and terrorism fully proven”, added.

The Venezuelan regime accused opponents Juan Guaidó, Leopoldo López, among others, of being behind the recent attacks by criminal groups in the capital of the Caribbean country and of having pleaded for the arrest of the national coordinator of the party opposition Voluntad Popular, Freddy Guevara, who is linked “to extremist and paramilitary groups associated with the Colombian government”.

For his part, López, in statements granted to Europe Press, made sure that Nicolás Maduro’s dictatorship seeks “once again” to fracture the Venezuelan opposition, which has been its “main strategy”.

“The dictatorship has been working for a long time to have an opposition to its measure”, underlined, before noting that the president wants her “an accomplice, submissive, weak” and “not to put on the agenda the need to get out of the dictatorship”.

López denounced that the Venezuelan opposition still does not know the whereabouts of the coordinator of Voluntad Popular and considered his “connection” with extremist and paramilitary groups associated with the Colombian government “implausible”.

The opposition leader assured that the opposition had alerted multiple actors to what had happened, among which he cited the European Parliament, the EU High Commissioner for Foreign Policy and European ministries Foreign Affairs, including Spain, in addition to the United States and Canada.

The Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ), which responds to Maduro’s interests, said last May that it had requested the extradition of López from Spain, who left his country illegally at the end of October, across the border with Spain. Colombia. , and settled in Spain.

“The Criminal Cassation Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ), has declared that it is appropriate to ask the Kingdom of Spain, the active extradition of the citizen Leopoldo Eduardo López Mendoza, for the faithful execution of the rest of his sentence on Venezuelan territory “, the court said in a statement.

As the court then explained, the sentence that López must serve is “eight years, six months, 25 days and 12 hours” for the crimes of “determining in the crime of arson, determining in the crime of damage. , author in the crime of public instigation and that of the association ”.

Days later López put himself at the disposal of the Spanish justice “in the face of the persecution of the dictatorship of Maduro” which, according to him, resulted “in a request for illegal extradition”.

Subsequently, the judge of the National Court of Spain Santiago Pedraz received the letter from the Venezuelan opponent in which he made himself available to the Spanish justice.

The letter fell to the central investigating court number 1, for which Pedraz is responsible, for being on duty that week, although they were still awaiting the announced request for López’s extradition to reach the national court, they said. they then explained to Efe legal sources.

In this regard, Maduro assured that the prosecution “found that a good part” of the shootings between gangs and police in Caracas last week “were prepared in advance, financed and directed by telematic channels from Madrid”.

“Terrorist attacks with criminal groups are being directed from Madrid in Venezuela and the Spanish government should know about it,” he said.

“We have the evidence in our hands, the prosecutor’s office has the evidence in our hands, the prosecutor has been forceful and clear, the scientific investigation teams of the prosecutor’s office have verified it, they have corroborated it and l ‘Venezuelan state acts on the basis of the law,’ he concluded.

Parliament Speaker Chavist Jorge Rodríguez last Tuesday showed alleged conversations by WhatsApp between López and other opponents who are part of the Voluntad Popular political party.

In these conversations, according to Rodríguez’s version, opponents spoke in cryptic language about how to prepare, with criminal gangs, for last week’s shootings in southwest Caracas. .

(With information from Europa Press and EFE)

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