(CNN Español) – The Spanish National High Court suspended the extradition of Hugo “Chicken” Carvajal, former director general of Military Counterintelligence of Venezuela, in the United States, where he is being prosecuted for alleged drug crimes, among others. .
The court said in a statement that this extradition will not take effect until an asylum process that Carvajal, according to his lawyer, María Dolores de Argüelles, has been open in Spain since the second quarter of 2019 is resolved.
Argüelles had told CNN the previous week that the agreement of the Council of Ministers of Spain of March 3, 2020, which states the approval of the delivery of his client to the US, already detailed that the extradition until the asylum application is resolved.
Carvajal was arrested Thursday night in Madrid by National Police agents following a joint operation with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA).
The arrest was in response to a request from the National High Court in November 2019, which then agreed to extradite the retired major general from the Venezuelan Army to the United States.
The capture of Carvajal was a challenge for the National Police after his escape following the decision of the National High Court, as detailed by the security force in a press release.
How did Hugo ‘Pollo’ Carvajal hide in Spain?
According to the authorities, Carvajal allegedly hid his identity by undergoing “various cosmetic surgery operations to modify his appearance” and used “all sorts of disguise elements to facilitate his concealment, among which were detected mustaches, beard and wigs “.
To these obstacles, the National Police is added the lack of property or material goods in the name of Carvajal that will help locate him, as well as that he used “several of the consorts as interposed figures of his total confidence, with the l ‘sole purpose of trying to go unnoticed by the security forces and bodies and not to leave any trace that allows to identify their presence in national territory “.
According to the National Police in the same press release, several agents of the Spanish security force were able to enter the house where Carvajal was hiding after obtaining the corresponding authorization for entry and registration by the court of guard. The entrance was not easy, as detailed, as they had to demolish an armored door in the vicinity of a fortified apartment.
It was in one of the last rooms of the house where they found Carvajal locked up, in an alleged “desperate attempt to avoid police arrest.”
Officers from the Police Intervention Unit who carried out the operation had to neutralize and grille him after removing a sharp knife he was carrying with him, according to the account detailed in a press release by the National Police.
After Carvajal’s arrest, the police force said that he acknowledged having been in Spain at all times and that, every three months, “he changed his hiding place using different homes in which he lived completely cloistered, without going out on the street in no moment, frightened by the public dissemination of his image “.
His arrest was taken by surprise, Argüelles told CNN. The lawyer said that his client pleads not guilty to the charges against him by the United States, and for this reason they presented the following day, Friday, very precautionary measures before the Supreme Court to prevent the extradition from taking place. .