The Spanish court ordered the extradition to the United States of Venezuelan general Hugo Armando Carvajal, detained in Madrid and considered the most wanted fugitive for drug trafficking by the Americans, after denying his request for asylum in Spain. The National Hearing decided on Wednesday (20) that Carvajal will be at the disposal of the International Police Cooperation Unit, which should carry out the handover to the US.
The ruling by the Spanish court comes in the same week that Ok Diario website revealed that the former head of Venezuelan military intelligence informed the Spanish court that the governments of Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro made illegal payments to left-wing political parties in the country. Europe and Latin America, among them the former presidents of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, of Argentina, Néstor Kirchner, and of Bolivia, Evo Morales.
In a letter sent to Spanish judge Manuel García-Castellón, which Ok Diario had access to, Carvajal said that the Venezuelan government had financed Spain’s left-wing party Podemos from its creation in 2014 until at least July 2017 The Spanish legend would also have received payments from Cuba.
In the letter, Carvajal pointed out: “While I was director of military intelligence and counterintelligence in Venezuela, I received a large number of reports indicating that this international funding was taking place. Specific examples are: Néstor Kirchner, in Argentina; Evo Morales, in Bolivia; Lula da Silva, in Brazil; Fernando Lugo, in Paraguay; Ollanta Humala, in Peru; (Manuel) Zelaya, in Honduras; Gustavo Petro, in Colombia; the Five Star Movement in Italy; and the Podemos, in Spain. All of them were reported as recipients of money sent by the Venezuelan government”.
The general informed the judge that this illegal financing scheme for left-wing political movements would have worked for “at least 15 years”.
Carvajal has provided documents to the Spanish court with which he intends to prove that Podemos has received payments from the Venezuelan government. General Chavista’s denunciation led García-Castellón this month to reopen a case on the alleged illegal financing of the left-wing party, which had been shelved for five years.
After handing in the documentation, Carvajal was summoned to appear at the National Hearing on October 27 to provide more information on the matter. With the determination of his extradition to the United States, it is not known now that General Chavez will give this testimony: the newspaper El Correo published on Wednesday that appeals against extradition would allow Carvajal to speak next week, however, legal sources consulted by the Diario de Ávila highlighted that, even with the possibility of him appealing, the extradition process continues its course.
Process in the United States
Carvajal is wanted by the US to stand trial for crimes that in Spain amount to belonging to a criminal organization or collaboration with a terrorist organization and drug trafficking in an aggravated manner.
On September 14, the Spanish court suspended the extradition of Carvajal, considered the most wanted fugitive by the United States for drug trafficking, until the Spanish Ministry of Interior resolved his request for asylum.
Shortly thereafter, the portfolio informed that it had refused the request and Carvajal immediately appealed against the refusal. However, on Tuesday (19), it was confirmed that asylum would not be granted, which is why the extradition was confirmed.
The National Audience approved the extradition of the former head of the Venezuelan secret services in November 2019, months after he was arrested in Spain with false documentation. However, the extradition did not take place, as the accused did not appear, as he was at liberty and later in an unknown whereabouts.
Nearly two years after the escape, Carvajal was arrested in September in a Madrid apartment that Spanish police had located with the help of the US anti-drug agency.
After his arrest, Carvajal was placed in a Madrid prison, awaiting extradition, and then asked to be allowed to testify before the Spanish court where his extradition was being processed, which was accepted by the judge in charge of the case.
Initially, Carvajal said he would talk about international terrorism issues related to ETA (the group calling for separation from the Basque Country) and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), but later pointed to alleged payments to former leaders of the Spanish party Podemos, ally of the Socialist Party in the Spanish government, through the Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA.
Transfer history
Even before Carvajal’s revelations were published by Ok Diario, several news about transfers of money made by the Venezuelan dictatorship had been published by the international press.
In 2007, Argentine customs found about $800,000 in a suitcase in the possession of a Venezuelan businessman who had arrived in Buenos Aires on a rented jet that had left Caracas.
Also on the plane were the president of the Argentine Highway Concession Control Agency (Occovi, its acronym in Spanish), Cláudio Uberti, who left office due to the scandal, the president of the Argentine state oil company Enarsa and four employees of the Venezuelan PDVSA . Later, the Venezuelan businessman stated in an interview that the money was for the campaign for president of Cristina Kirchner, wife of then president Néstor Kirchner.
In his book “Hugo Chávez, the specter: how the Venezuelan president fueled drug trafficking, financed terrorism and promoted global disorder” (Vestígio Editora, 2018), columnist Leonardo Coutinho, from People’s Gazette, described the sending of suitcases of money between Iran and Venezuela after then-Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad instructed Hugo Chávez in 2007 to broker the purchase of Argentine nuclear secrets.
In 2020, the Spanish newspaper ABC reported that Maduro authorized the sending in 2010 of a suitcase containing 3.5 million euros in cash to one of the founders of the Five Star Movement. At the time, Maduro was foreign minister in the Chávez government. The Italian party denied the allegations.
On Tuesday, Colombian senator Gustavo Petro said he will sue Carvajal in international courts for a declaration that he had received money sent by Venezuela. “I am preparing a legal intervention to confront the general and alleged drug trafficker Hugo Carvajal, whether in Spain or the United States,” Petro wrote on Twitter.
Also on Tuesday, Lula’s advisors denied that he had received money from Venezuela. “Former President Lula had all his secrets broken and analyzed over the years and no irregularities or illegal amounts were found in his accounts”, he pointed out, in a note sent to People’s Gazette.
On Wednesday, deputies opposing Argentine President Alberto Fernández, for whom Cristina Kirchner is deputy, informed Clarín that they are going to ask the country’s Federal Court to request a copy of Carvajal’s testimony in Spain.
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