FILE PHOTO: Former Venezuelan intelligence chief Hugo Carvajal stands during his extradition hearing to U.S. at the High Court in Madrid, Spain, September 12, 2019. Emilio Naranjo/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
CARACAS (Reuters) - The European Court of Human Rights has denied an effort by a former director of Venezuelan military intelligence, wanted on drug trafficking charges by the United States, to avoid extradition from Spain.
The United States in 2020 accused Hugo Carvajal - who was late President Hugo Chavez's eyes and ears within Venezuelan's military for more than a decade - of drug trafficking in 2020, along with more than a dozen other high-ranking officials including current President Nicolas Maduro.
Carvajal was arrested in September 2021 at a Madrid apartment by Spanish police and is being held in Estremera, outside of the capital. He has denied supporting cocaine trafficking to the U.S.
"Mr Carvajal Barrios had failed to demonstrate that he would be at real risk of being sentenced to life imprisonment without parole... therefore (we) found the application to be manifestly ill-founded," the court said in a statement, adding its decision was final.
"As he had not yet been tried, it was difficult to ascertain the outcome, but the court was satisfied that he would be tried in a legal system respectful of the rule of law and principles of a fair trial, in which he would have full opportunity to mount a defense with the help of legal representation," it added.
Venezuela's ruling party managed to free Carvajal when he was first arrested in Aruba in 2014, but he fled to Spain in 2021 after distancing himself from the government and backing an opposition leader.
(Reporting by Luc Cohen and Vivian Sequera; Writing by Julia Symmes Cobb; Editing by Conor Humphries)
