Strasbourg Court gives Spain the green light to extradite Venezuelan General Pollo Carvajal to the US

The Court of Strasbourg today gave the green light to Spain to extradite USAwho wants to try him for drug trafficking, the former head of Venezuelan counterintelligence during the presidency of Hugo Chavez, Hugo Armando Carvajalknown as the Carvajal Chicken.

The European judges, who had asked Spain that he not carry out that extradition while they were examining the demand for carvajaldismiss the arguments that the former Venezuelan general had provided in his complaint, in which he stressed that in USA he risks a sentence of life imprisonment with no chance of ever getting a conditional release.

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However the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) “is convinced” that he will be tried in “a judicial system respectful of the preeminence of law and the principles of a fair process in which you will have the full possibility of organizing your defense with a lawyer”.

On the question of the risk of an effective life sentence, without the possibility of being released from prison for the rest of his life, he insists that nothing is written because, depending on various circumstances, the chicken carvajal It doesn’t have to end with a sentence like that.

If found guilty, extenuating circumstances could be considered and, eventually, a first judicial decision could be appealed. He ECtHR notes that the maximum penalties “they are very unusual” in federal proceedings in USA.

Also remember that, to clarify things, the embassy of USA in Spain He had sent a verbal note in November 2021 in which he explained that in the event that he was sentenced to incompressible life, not only would he have the option of appealing, but also the possibility of requesting a pardon or having his sentence commuted. penalty for another less harsh.

The former head of Venezuelan counterintelligence had denounced Spain in Strasbourg after his appeal for amparo before the constitutional Court failed in October 2021 alleging that if he was sent to USA was exposed to a violation of article European Convention on Human Rights which prohibits the violation of inhuman and degrading treatment.

The jurisprudence of ECtHR On this article, it has established the principle that in the case of life imprisonment and in order not to violate that right, the country that applies it must consider the possibility of a reduction in the effective sentence taking into account significant changes in the life of the prisoner, such as progress in his rehabilitation that makes his keeping behind bars illegitimate.

Carvajal, who is interned in the Estremera prison (province of Madrid), came to Spain in March 2019 under a false identity and was arrested under an Interpol search warrant, as he USA claimed him for years as responsible for acts of narcoterrorism and the introduction of cocaine into its territory.

Before that, he had already been arrested in July 2014 in Arubaa territory of Netherlands in it Caribbean in which he was consul of Venezuela, for the same American arrest warrant. He then he was able to avoid extradition of him by his diplomatic status, but he was expelled from him.

In 2019, when I was a member of the National Assembly Venezuelan, was expelled from the Army of his country and accused of treason for having recognized as president Juan Guaidoopposition leader to the president’s regime Nicolas Maduro.

Source: Elcomercio

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I am Jack Morton and I work in 24 News Recorder. I mostly cover world news and I have also authored 24 news recorder. I find this work highly interesting and it allows me to keep up with current events happening around the world.