By Luc Cohen
MADRID/NEW YORK (Reuters) -The former head of Venezuela’s military intelligence, Hugo Carvajal, arrived in the United States on Wednesday to face drug trafficking charge after being extradited from Spain, his lawyer said.
Carvajal is expected to make an initial appearance in Manhattan federal court on Thursday morning, said his lawyer, Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma.
On Tuesday, the Spanish court ordered Carvajal’s immediate extradition after the European Court of Human Rights last week rejected his last attempt to avoid being sent to the United States.
Nicknamed ‘El Pollo’, the chicken, Carvajal – who was late President Hugo Chavez’s eyes and ears within Venezuela’s military for more than a decade – was first arrested in Spain in 2019, but went into hiding after a court approved his extradition. He was re-arrested in September 2021 in Madrid.
The U.S. in 2020 accused Carvajal of drug trafficking, along with more than a dozen other high-ranking Venezuelan officials, including President Nicolas Maduro. Carvajal has denied supporting cocaine trafficking to the United States.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s office in Manhattan, which brought the charges, confirmed Carvajal had been extradited.
Prosecutors say Carvajal in 2006 coordinated the shipment of 5,600 kg (1,235 pounds) of U.S.-bound cocaine to Mexico from Venezuela.
Carvajal, who took part in the failed 1992 coup that lifted Maduro’s predecessor and mentor Chavez to political prominence, is considered one of the most powerful figures of the socialist leader’s 1999-2013 rule.
In 2019, after Washington recognized an opposition leader as Venezuela’s legitimate president in an unsuccessful push to oust Maduro, Carvajal released a social media video calling on the military to facilitate the “return to democracy.”
Carvajal is also wanted in Venezuela on charges including treason and financing terrorism.
“I hope the United States … delivers to Venezuela a criminal like Hugo Carvajal,” Jorge Rodriguez, the president of Venezuela’s Maduro-aligned legislature, told reporters on Wednesday.
(Reporting by Emma Pinedo in Madrid and Luc Cohen in New York; Additional reporting by Deisy Buitrago in Caracas; Editing by William Maclean, Mike Harrison and Daniel Wallis)
