NEW YORK — A former Venezuelan spy chief and longtime adviser to the country’s late leader, Hugo Chávez, pleaded not guilty Thursday in a New York court to decade-old drug charges, a day after his extradition. from Spain.
Retired Major General Hugo Carvajal, 63, agreed during an initial appearance in Manhattan federal court to remain behind bars while his lawyers prepare a bail proposal to present to the judge who will hear his case. Prosecutors want him to stay behind bars.
Carvajal, in a white shirt and beige pants, did not speak during the brief legal process, except to acknowledge that he understood his rights and that he could hear an interpreter.
“Perfectly,” he said through the interpreter in response to whether he could hear the man through his headphones.
Carvajal was taken to the United States on Wednesday to face charges of narco-terrorism conspiracy, firearms and drug trafficking.
Prosecutors allege he used his high position to coordinate the smuggling of approximately 5,600 kilograms (12,300 pounds) of cocaine aboard a private plane from Venezuela to Mexico in 2006. If convicted on all counts, Carvajal would face a mandatory minimum sentence. 30 years and up to life imprisonment.
Federal prosecutor Damian Williams said in a statement that Carvajal abused his authority as director of Venezuela’s military intelligence agency between 2004 and 2011 “to import poison into the United States” in the form of “tons of potentially lethal drugs.”
US Drug Enforcement Administration administrator Anne Milgram said in a press release that she “exploited her position for personal gain.”
Outside of court, his lawyer, Zachary Margulis, had much to say about his client, who advised Chávez for more than a decade before rejecting Chávez’s hand-picked successor, Nicolás Maduro, and siding with his US-backed opponents. Joined.
Margulis described the US attorney’s office as unlike any other, saying he had not been informed of any evidence, including text messages, emails, phone conversations, prison call recordings, surveillance video, or physical evidence linked to his customer.
And he said it is unusual in a drug case for “no evidence of unexplained wealth.”
“He is categorically innocent of those charges,” he said. “General Carvajal looks forward to fighting these outrageous charges in court before an impartial American jury.”
Margulis, standing outside the courthouse with defense attorney Tess Cohen, said prosecutors had based their case “entirely on false and uncorroborated statements by desperate drug traffickers and corrupt former Venezuelan officials with personal and professional grudges against General Carvajal.”
Carvajal’s extradition to the US was long delayed, most recently through appeals. Arrested for the first time in Spain in 2019, he disappeared for two years on bail after learning that the Spanish National Court was about to rule on his extradition. He was recaptured in September 2021.
